Rest of India win after abandoned final day

Rest of India 260 (Jadeja 77, Agarkar 3-45) and 352 for 4 (Mukund 126, Vijay 91,Tiwary 80*) beat Mumbai 230 (Jaffer 68, Sreesanth 3-46, Munaf 5-70) by first-innings lead
Scorecard and ball-by-ball details
How they were out

Rest of India (ROI) lifted the Irani Cup on the basis of a first-innings lead after the final day was abandoned because of overnight rain in Nagpur.

The interest started to evaporate away from the game in the afternoon of day 3 when Mumbai couldn't break the opening partnership between Abhinav Mukund and M Vijay and the match was dead by day 4 as ROI showed no interest in declaring. There was no cricket on the final day as heavy overnight rain left the outfield, and the bowler's run-up, unfit for play.

The match had started with the background of the bowling crisis gripping the national team and all interest was, obviously, on Sreesanth and Munaf Patel. Both lived up to the billing; Sreesanth was the best bowler on view, hitting a full length and getting the ball to seam both ways. Munaf, too, improved after a slow start and teased the batsmen with his accurate seam bowling on the off-stump channel to end up with a five-wicket haul.

Sreesanth also revealed his other side, getting into a tiff with Dhawal Kulkarni and being fined 60% of his match fee for that. Along with Munaf, he has done his best to push for a spot in the Indian team but one has to wait and see how the selectors view this incident. There was, also, some interest in the third seamer, the talented Sudeep Tyagi, but he had a bad game as he never came to terms with the slightly slow wicket, often bowling too short. Mumbai had Dhawal Kulkarni and he was steady without ever looking too threatening. He had two catches dropped off his bowling and, had they gone in his favour, we might have seen him up his game further.

The other sidelights prior to the game were Virender Sehwag's return from injury and how Rohit Sharma would bat. Sehwag didn't score much and later went down with fever and couldn't take the field. He was padded up, though, at the end of the second session on the fourth day and appeared at the post-match ceremony where he said he would play in the Champions League. Rohit Sharma didn't make use of his opportunity, edging behind a full length delivery that straightened and will now have to score consistently in the domestic circuit to force his way into the Indian team.

Four other players got among runs: Mukund, Vijay, Ravindra Jadeja, and Manoj Tiwary. The consistent Mukund was again steady, Vijay didn't look fluent but fought on, Jadeja played a very responsible hand, and Tiwary played a very patient hand. The positives to take out from this Irani Cup, though, would be the form of Sreesanth and Munaf.