Mumbai, Feb 26: Having won their first three matches chasing, Mumbai opted to bowl first at the Wankhede Stadium in their last game of the Inter-state one-day league, against archrivals Maharashtra. The home team, however, were unsuccessful as they lost the match by 15 runs.

Chasing 255, the hosts lost the key wickets of Ajinkya Rahane, Wasim Jaffer and Sushant Marathe early in the innings. Pacer Anupam Sanklecha trapped the openers lbw and struck Jaffer’s stumps with an inswinging delivery; Akshay Darekar had Surya Kumar Yadav stumped for five a little while later. The left-arm spinner struck again to break the a blossoming partnership of 46 runs between Shoaib Shaikh and Abhishek Nayar by sending back the southpaw for 42. Shaikh soon followed him back to the dressing room to leave Mumbai tottering on 130 for six. But Iqbal Abdulla and Ankit Chavan built a valiant 91-run partnership to take Mumbai closer to victory.

With 34 runs required off 24 deliveries, Abdulla perished while trying to hit Darekar over the ropes in an attempt to accelerate the run-rate. Undeterred by the wicket, Chavan reached his half-century with a six. But unlike in the previous games, Dhawal Kulkarni could not make any valuable contribution as a Mohsin Sayyad-delivery took the edge of his bat and landed in the hands of the keeper.

With 16 runs required, Darekar struck twice in the same over to dismiss Chavan and Kshemal Waingankar, wrapping up the Mumbai innings for 239 in 48.3 overs.

Earlier, asked to bat first by stand-in captain Rahane, Maharashtra lost three early wickets but Ankeet Bawne took the visitors to 254 for eight with an unbeaten 93. Spearheading the Mumbai attack in the absence of Agarkar, Dhawal Kulkarni dismissed Harshad Khadiwale and Rohit Motwani and then ran out Chirag Khurana leaving the visitors on 40 for three in the tenth over.

Bawne and Sangarm Atitkar (54) stabilised the innings with an 89-run partnership but Ankit Chavan rattled the latter’s stumps to impede the innings. Kedar Jadhav then added a useful 28 before edging Abhishek Nayar to the wicketkeeper. Nayar claimed Nikhil Paradkar in a similar fashion off the next ball but missed out on a hat-trick.

Shrikant Mundhe contributed 24 runs before falling to debutant pacer Balwinder Singh Sandhu’s (Jr). Akshay Darekar, who replaced him, followed him back to the pavilion run out by Surya Kumar Yadav.

Brief Score: Maharashtra 254-8 in 50 overs (AR Bawne 93*, SD Atitikar 54, DS Kulkarni 8-0-41-2, Abhishek Nayar 6-0-18-2) beat Mumbai 239-10 after 48.3 overs (Abhishek Nayar 42, I Abdullah 52, AA Chavan 58, Anupam Sanklecha 7.0-1-23-3, AA Darekar 9.3-0-59-5).