Photo: BCCI/Hotstar

Openers Jay Bista and Aditya Tare made light work of the Madhya Pradesh bowlers and led Mumbai to their third straight win in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy at the Wankhede Stadium on Monday.

Electing to bat first in the Group D fixture, MP put on 159/5 but that didn't face the opening pair of the home side when they came out to bat. The Tare-Bista duo was on the ball right from the start with runs flowing from the second over, that saw two boundaries.

Bista, a SoBo Supersonics star who scored T20 Mumbai's first century earlier this year, upped the tempo in the third over with the first six of the Mumbai innings after he hooked pacer Gaurav Yadav's delivery into the stands and set the tone of the chase.

In his third match of the tournament, Jay Bista brought up his second fifty off just 27 balls and continued his battery. Ankit Sharma conceded 16 runs in the 11th over and ended with unenviable figures of 0/49 in his four overs, the most expensive for the day.

The two put on a partnership of 111, broken in the 12th over by Kuldeep Sen as Bista's innings ended for a 36-ball 68 (7x4s, 4x6s) at a strike rate of 188.88. But the pace of the run-scoring didn't relent as Tare hit successive boundaries off Sen right after Bista's dismissal and brought up his fifty in 36 balls.

Suryakumar Yadav faced the next ball and that too found the ropes as the Mumbai captain got off the mark in style.

The two Mumbai stalwarts ended the match with 25 balls to spare as Tare lofted one over the covers for the match-winning six, handing the team a nine-wicket victory.

Tare, the leading run-scorer in T20 Mumbai this season, remained unbeaten on 74 (48b, 10x4s, 2x6s) at a strike rate of 154.16 while Yadav was 20* off just 11 balls, aided by 3 fours.

Earlier, the match saw left-arm pacer Atif Attarwala make his Mumbai debut. The 27-year-old was North Mumbai Panthers' leading wicket-taker in Season 2 of T20 Mumbai when his team lifted the trophy.

Mumbai is scheduled to play their next match against Puducherry on Tuesday.

Shashank Singh's best bowling

In the Group C match between Chhattisgarh and Railways at Chandigarh, Shashank Singh grabbed a T20 career-best of 3/20 in his four overs to help his team win by 72 runs. Earlier Shashank Chandrakar and captain Harpreet Singh scored hefty fifties while Singh, a former Triumph Knights Mumbai North East player, hit 14 runs off just 4 balls at the death to help Chhattisgarh to 190/6. Railways succumbed for just 118 in response with Pankaj Rao too grabbing three wickets to help seal the win.