Rahane breaks free, takes Mumbai into SMAT final

MUMBAI: After spinners Tanush Kotian and Atharva Ankolekar's thrifty bowling kept Baroda batters restricted to 158/7, Ajinkya Rahane's blazing 98 (56b, 11x4, 5x6) made short work of the target to take Mumbai to the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final with six wickets in hand on Friday in Bengaluru.

- Rasesh Mandani

In a field of India's most destructive T20 batters from Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Shreyas Iyer and Shivam Dube, Rahane's classy stroke-play overshadowed them all. That's how much impact Rahane has had in the tournament, now leading the charts with most runs (432) scored at a razor-sharp strike rate of 169.

One may be tempted to say that this is Rahane 2.0 to use it postpositively. What his late surge in the T20 format goes to show is that once Rahane frees himself from the fear of failure, he can unlock a more confident batting version of himself which does not show up enough.