Ajinkya Rahane leads from the front, carries Mumbai to SMAT final with victory over Baroda

India batter Ajinkya Rahane played a sublime knock of 98 from 56 deliveries to carry Mumbai to a 6-wicket victory over Baroda in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT). The win saw Mumbai book their place in the final which is set to take place at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday.

Rahane hit 5 boundaries and 11 sixes in his brilliant knock and was assisted well by skipper Shreyas Iyer who also played a decent knock of 46 from 30 deliveries to help Mumbai achieve the target of 159 in 17.2 overs.

The 88-run partnership between Rahane and Iyer led Mumbai to complete the chase rather comfortably. Suryansh Shedge finished the match with a towering six on the very first ball that he faced.

Earlier, Baroda was put into bat first under overcast conditions. Krunal Pandya and Shashwat Rawat took the score to 73 in the first 9 overs before Shedge dismissed the former to trigger a batting collapse. Baroda could only manage to put a total of 158/7 on the board after Hardik Pandya also failed to deliver, scoring 5 runs off 6 deliveries.

From 73/1 to 103/6, Baroda lost wickets in heaps before Atit Sheth and Shivalik Sharma played attacking cameos of 22 and 36 respectively to carry their side to a respectable total.

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