Mumbai: Ankit Rajpoot’s last ball boundary off left-arm spinner Rahil Shah provided a thrilling finish to a match of purely academic interest, after East Zone had clinched the Syed Mushtaq Ali inter-Zonal Twenty20 league defeating West Zone in the first match, at the Wankhede Stadium here on Saturday.
After failing to connect the penultimate ball from the spinner, Rajpoot came down the pitch and hit the last ball straight down the ground to help Central go past South’s 181 and take the runner-up position in the five-team league.
South, which had set a target of a little over nine an over, was in control at the end of the 18th over, but Central, with in-form batsman Harpreet Singh Bhatia in the middle, believed it could still get 23 needed in the last two overs and succeeded.
The left-handed Bhatia hit seamer Sandeep Warrier for two fours and then Amit Mishra carted him for a six over midwicket.
Warrier conceded 19 runs his last over, but the clever Shah had Bhatia caught at point off the first ball of the 20th over and brought his team back in contention. Eventually fortune favoured the brave as Rajpoot decided to go for the broke, connected the ball, and more importantly got the direction right.
The man-of-the-match for Central, though, was Bhatia who made 92 off 51 balls with 10 fours and four sixes.
Scoreboard:
South Zone: Vishnu Vinod c Dhaliwal b Choudhary 31, Maynak Agarwal c Dhaliwal b Choudhary 5, Ricky Bhui c & b Karn Sharma 17, Dinesh Karthik c Akshdeep Nath b Karn Sharma 35, Vijay Shankar c Ojha b Rajpoot 40, Pavan Deshpande (not out) 33, Swaroop Kumar (run out) 7, M. Ashwin c Dhaliwal b Rajpoot 2, C.V. Milind (not out) 2, Extras (lb-5, w-4): 9, Total (for seven wkts. in 20 overs): 181.
Fall of wickets: 1-28, 2-37, 3-73, 4-100, 5-149, 6-169, 7-170.
Central Zone bowling: Ankit Rajpoot 4-0-28-2, Aniket Chaudhary 4-0-36-2, Amit Mishra 4-0-45-0, Karn Sharma 4-0-31-2, Sohraab Dhaliwal 4-0-36-0.
Central Zone: Naman Ojha c Milind b Shah 0, A.N. Khare st. Karthik b Swaroop Kumar 39, Harpreet Singh c Vijay Shankar b Shah 92, A.T. Rayudu (run out) 11, Mahesh Rawat c Karthik b Vijay Shankar 2, Akshdeep Nath c Karthik b Milind 4, Karn Sharma c Milind b Warrier 1, Sohraab Dhaliwal c Bhui b Ashwin 10, Amit Mishra (not out) 13, Ankit Rajpoot (not out) 5, Extras (b-2, lb-1, w-4): 7, Total (for eight wkts. in 20 overs): 184.
Fall of wickets: 1-0, 2-67, 3-90, 4-111, 5-116, 6-130, 7-147, 8-178.
South Zone bowling: Rahil Shah 3-0-20-2, Sandeep Warrier 4-0-52-1, Chama Milind 4-0-32-1, M. Ashwin 4-0-43-1, Swaroop Kumar 3-0-20-1, Vijay Shankar 2-1-14-1.
