“Greetings from a hazy Mumbai,” says Vishal Dikshit. “Hosts are in a must win against Meghalaya. Looking for six points, if not seven, Mumbai have opted to bowl and within 20 minutes, they are all over Meghalaya thanks to a hat-trick from Shardul Thakur.

“He bags a trio of Meghalaya’s middle order in his second over by targeting the stumps and having one batter caught. Running in from around the wicket to left-hand batter B Anirudh in his second over, Thakur first hit the top of the stumps by beating the outside edge. Next he drew an edge from No. 5 Sumit Kumar to have him caught by Shams Mulani, and on the last ball of the third over Thakur again beat a left-hand batter – Jaskirat Sachdeva – to leave the visitors reeling at just 2 for 6!”

Mumbai have made as many as six changes to the XI! A few of them forced, of course. Rohit, Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer and Shivam Dube have all gone for or getting ready for national duty. The other two missing out are wicketkeeper Hardik Tamore and Karsh Kothari, and the players coming in are Ayush Mhatre, Siddhesh Lad, Suryansh Shedge, Akash Anand, Amogh Bhatkal and Sylvester Dsouza.