Skipper Ajit Agarkar reads out the riot act after Mumbai's flop show vs Punjab in Mushtaq Ali tourney

Disappointment was writ large on Mumbai skipper Ajit Agarkar's face after Mumbai lost to Punjab by five wickets in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 semi-finals yesterday. Punjab restricted the hosts to 122 for nine before achieving their target.


Mumbai skipper Ajit Agarkar fields off his own bowling against Punjab
in the Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament at BKC yesterday. Pic/Suresh KK

"A total of 180 would have been great, but something around 150 would have been better to defend. Once you post 120 odd runs, you need to take 10 wickets, which wasn't possible," Agarkar said after the match.u00a0 While summing up the season, the skipper was at loss for words. "We haven't won any trophy in the last two years. I haven't seen this in my career. It's really disappointing to finish the season like this," he said.u00a0

As captain for the first time, he obviously wouldn't have been happy with the results and that was quite evident at the Bandra Kurla Complex yesterday.u00a0 "It's something that won't go down well as far as I am concerned. But you cannot do anything. It's part and parcel of the game," Agarkar said in a lighter vein.

Besides the batting, the skipper took a swipe at the home team's fielding. "We have to improve a lot in the fielding department. The Mumbai players would have to keep pace with others. Players from other states have improved their fielding in leaps and bounds over time. We could have saved five to 10 runs had we fielded
better," Agarkar felt.

He also rued the two run-outs (Abhishek Nayar and Surya Kumar Yadav) that cost them the match. "Yes, those two run outs were crucial, but even after that, we could have done well to push the score close to 150. That didn't happen," he remarked.

Agarkar, however, heaped praise on the bowlers especially the two left-arm spinners, Ankeet Chavan and Iqbal Abdulla: "Dhaval (Kulkarni) and Javed (Khan) started well and then Ankeet and Iqbal bowled really well, but our total was too less to defend."