Chandigarh. Chandigarh suffered a thrilling threerun defeat to Bengal in the prequarterfinal match of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament in Bengaluru. The experienced cricketing career of international cap Mohammed Shammi overshadowed the allround performance of Rajangad Bawa and Jagjit Sandhu and chasing Bengal's challenge of 1599, Chandigarh was able to muster 1569 on the last ball of the match.
Earlier, Chandigarh won the toss and decided to field first. Manan Vohra's decision proved fruitful when Sandhu dismissed the opposition's top order – Abhishek Porel (8), captain Sudeep Kumar (0) and Habib Gandhi (10) for 21 runs. Karan Lal and Hrithik Chatterjee made up for the loss and made a partnership of 40 runs in just 21 balls. Bava curbed the havoc of Chatterjee (28 runs from 12 balls) taking the score to 614. In the very next over, Amrit Lubana dismissed Shahbaz (7) and sent half the team back for 70 runs.
After this, Bawa (227) brought relief to the Chandigarh camp by bowling out the dangerous looking top scorer Karan Lal (33) in his same spell and the score became 916. After this, on the team score of 113, Nikhil Sharma got Agniv Pan (6) while Sandhu (421) made Kanishk Seth (1) his fourth victim and increased the concern of Bengal with 1148.
Shammi took the lead with Pradipta Pramanik and tried to reach a respectable score by making a partnership of 24 runs. Bhagminder Lathaid dismissed Pramanik for 30 runs but Shammi did not stop there. Unbeaten Shammi scored 32 runs in 17 balls to take Bengal to 1599.
In reply, while chasing the target, Chandigarh's opener Arsalan Khan (0) played an excellent shot and got caught by Habib Gandhi off Shammi's ball. Soon Shivam Bhambri (14) became the first victim of Sanyam Ghosh at the team score of 202. Ghosh also took the wicket of Lubana (14) in the same spell. After this, with the dismissal of captain Manan Vohra (23), clouds of defeat soon started looming over Chandigarh.
Facing world class bowling, Pradeep Yadav and Rajangad Bawa made a courageous partnership of 45 runs in 30 balls and took the score to 101 runs. Kanishk broke the partnership by dismissing Pradeep (27) and put a stop to the run rate. Till now, Bava, who was playing on 32 runs in 20 balls, came back into the match by being caught by Ghosh on his own ball and the score was 1296. Kanishka made Lathaid (6) his second victim.
Sandhu gave Shammi hope by scoring 12 runs in the 19th over but after his run out, Nikhil Sharma (22) became the fourth victim of Ghosh (430). Nishank Birla's four on the last ball also could not cross the target and Chandigarh could only muster 1569.
Chandigarh wins by one wicket over Odisha in a thrilling finish
Chandigarh. Chandigarh ended their campaign with a thrilling onewicket win over hosts Odisha in the final league match of the Cooch Behar Trophy in Sundergarh. On the last day of the match, Chandigarh needed 105 runs with nine wickets remaining but the host team's Priyanshu Mohanty (774) created excitement in the match by taking seven wickets. In reply to Odisha's first innings score of 257, Chandigarh was all out for 215 runs. Odisha collapsed for 132 runs in the second innings after which Chandigarh got the target of 174. On the last day of the match, Chandigarh was seen struggling with 1187 in front of Priyanshu's bowling. Unbeaten Markandey Panchal led Chandigarh to win by one wicket with 59 runs with the help of six sixes and one four in 27 balls.
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Image Credit: KhasKhabar.