In perhaps the most important fixture of Group D, Mumbai beat Maharashtra to book a berth in the Super League stage of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2015-16. With Uttar Pradesh already through to the next round, Mumbai not only needed to down Maharashtra, but had to do so with a decent margin to push their net run-rate up. Chasing Maharashtra’s 155/8, Mumbai reached the target with 23 balls to spare. In other matches, Karnataka picked up a consolation win while Uttar Pradesh finished the league stage on a high with their fifth successive win A recap of all the action on Friday Maharashtra V Mumbai: Maha 155/8 (P Bhati 36, N Naik 31, Pravin Tambe 2/24) lost to Mum 157/2 in 16.1 overs (Aditya Tare 65*, Shreyas Iyer 38) by 8 wickets Captain Aditya Tare won an important toss for Mumbai and elected to bowl first in their must-win encounter against Maharashtra at DRIEMS Ground, Cuttack. Fast bowler Dhawal Kulkarni struck on the sixth ball of the first over to remove Chirag Khurana for zero. Khurana, who earlier had scores of 0 and 1, once again failed, putting Maharashtra in trouble. Captain Kedhar Jadhav then shared a 51-run stand for the second wicket with Swapnil Gugale as Maharashtra recovered from an early damage. However, once Jadhav was castled by Pravin Tambe in the in the ninth over, Gugale too followed in the next. Tambe then picked up his second wicket when he cleaned up Nikhil Naik to end an important fourth wicket partnership of 44 runs. Late heroics from Prayag Bhati then helped Maharashtra cross the 150-run mark. With the target in sight and equation in mind, Mumbai batters started aggressively. Even though Akhil Herwadkar was out in the third over, Mumbai crossed the 50-run mark just in 31 balls with Shreyas Iyer and Tare taking over. The two right-handers added 49 from 31 balls before Iyer got out. Tare continued to blast from the other end and brought up his half-century in 31 balls. With Siddesh Lad joining Tare in the middle, Mumbai got to the total in just 16.1 overs. The win took Mumbai’s tally to 12 points, but a better run-rate helped them secure the second spot while Maharashtra finished third. Services V Uttar Pradesh: UP 182/6 (Eklavya Dwivedi 89, Prashant Gupta 43, Raushan Raj 3/42) beat Rlys 125/9 (Yashpal Singh 47, Ankit Rajpoot 2/11) by 57 runs The only way forward for Services was to beat table toppers Uttar Pradesh with a big margin and displace Mumbai from the second spot. However, Uttar Pradesh were in no mood to relent as they thumped Railways by 57 runs in the final league match. Wicketkeeper batsman Eklavya Dwivedi hit 89 off 53 balls to guide UP to a massive 182/6 with opener Prashant Gupta chipping in with 43. The Railways’ chase never took off and they were four down for just 12 runs. A 59-run stand for the fifth wicket between Vikas Hathwala and Yashpal Singh was the only bright spot and once the partnership ended by Saurabh Kumar, Railways lost the track. With five wins, Uttar Pradesh enter the next round in Mumbai with a lot of confidence. Services finished the league stage with two wins and three losses. Karnataka V Odisha: Odisha 102/7 (Abhishek Yadav 31, Abhimanyu Mithun 2/13) lost to Kar 106/4 in 17.5 overs (Robin Uthappa 48, Stuart Binny 32 not out) by 6 wickets Robin Uthappa smashed six fours and a six in his 41-ball knock of 48 runs as he and Stuart Binny (32) chased down Odisha’s 102/7 with 12 balls to spare. The victory was almost confirmed after a disciplined bowling performance. Spinners Shreyas Gopal and KC Cariappa picked up two wickets each while Abhimnayu Mithun took two wickets too in his three overs. Karnataka, who have struggled in the T20 format in the past, once again had a forgettable tournament and failed to qualify for the next round. Follow the stars Maharashtra captain Kedar Jadhav made 29 from 27 balls Pravin Tambe took 2/24 from four overs. He also bowled 10 dot balls Dhawal Kulkarni picked 2/28 against Maharashtra Piyush Chawla claimed 2/25 versus Services Karnataka captain Vinay Kumar gave away just nine runs in three overs Stuary Binny remained not out on 32 off 30 balls