Bengal wrapped up an eight-wicket win against Odisha to secure its place in the Super League stage of the Syed Mushtaq T20 tournament here on Saturday.
Chasing 109, Bengal lost the early wicket of Shreevats Goswami but Wriddhiman Saha and Abhimanyu Easwaran cantered home with more than seven overs to spare. Saha, who brought up his fifty off 27 balls with a six over deep mid-wicket, was ably supported by Easwaran as the duo benefitted even more from sloppy fielding by Odisha.
Earlier, stand-in captain Anurag Sarangi won the toss and chose to bat. Odisha was dealt an early blow when Ishan Porel struck with the last ball off his first over, cleaning up opener Shantanu Mishra, who was beaten for pace.
Rajesh Dhuper, at the other end, collected two boundaries off Ashoke Dinda before being caught at third-man off Ayan Bhattacharjee's bowling. Sayan Ghosh then removed Biplab Samantaray as Odisha once again stuttered through the Powerplay to get behind the eight-ball.
They were choked for runs in the middle overs, and no-one pulled the noose tighter than Bhattacharjee and Ghosh; their combined figures of 8-29-3 completely drying up the run-flow.
The middle order, reeling under the after effect of a sedate start, succumbed to overambitious shot selection. Rajesh Mohanty hammered a brace of sixes in the 17th over to take Odisha closer to 100, a below-par total against Bengal's strong batting order. Porel finished with figures of three for 19.
Karnataka wins last-over thriller
In another match, Sumit Kumar's quickfire 40-ball 63 went in vain as Karnataka eked out a narrow 14-run win over Haryana at the DRIEMS ground to keep its unbeaten streak intact.
Haryana never really got going in its reply with leg-spinner Shreyas Gopal taking a hat-trick in the 11th over and seamer Prasidh too chipping in with three wickets to cripple the opposition batting.
Kumar orchestrated a late revival with eight boundaries and three sixes but found little support from others as Haryana was knocked out.
Inserted in, Karnataka's formidable batting failed to fire for the first time with Amit Mishra and Arun Chaprana picking up three wickets each to restrict the opposition to 138/9 in 20 overs.
Mayank Agarwal, who has struggled for runs at the top, came to bat at No. 3 while Rohan Kadam opened the innings with R. Sharath. The duo added 42 for the first wicket before Kadam offered a catch to Jayant Yadav in the sixth over. Sharath followed suit and Agarwal squandered yet another start as Karnataka slipped from 75/3 to 136/9 in 9.1 overs.
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