The Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy quarterfinal between Bengal and Karnataka took a dramatic late turn on Thursday when a Manish Pandey direct throw took the game to Super Over territory.
Batting first, Karnataka had scored 160/5 after 20 overs and chasing the target, Bengal brought the equation down to 20 off the last over. Ritwik Roy Chowdhury smacked a couple of sixes off the first two balls and then took the game down to the wire with1 run needed off the last ball. However, Manish Pandey’s direct hit changed the script and took the game into a super over at the Arun Jaitley Stadium, Delhi.
Bengal batted first in the next phase of the game but KC Cariappa’s masterclass put immense pressure. Kaif Ahmed holed out to Karun Nair at long-off on the second ball. A four thereafter made it five runs in three balls. With pressure building up, Goswami attempted to sneak a quick second on the fourth delivery but fell short as Bengal finished at 5/2.
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Manish Pandey and Karun Nair began the chase for Karnataka and the contest ended early in the over when Pandey smashed the second ball over deep-midwicket for a maximum and secured a hard-fought win.
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With this, the four semifinalists of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy are Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Hyderabad, and Vidarbha.
After the match, Bengal head coach Arun Lal said: “You have to learn to win, have to win close matches and then you become a big team. Winning is a habit. I am very disappointed that the boys, who had prepared so well with heart and soul, made mistakes and did not win. There’s learning from this, you can’t just brush it under the carpet and look for a silver lining, that’s not enough. We need to reassess everything, where we’ve made the mistakes point by point and learn from it.”
“Losing two wickets (Kaif & Shahbaz) in the same over to a left-arm spinner was a bad loss. We had the match in our hand, super over can go either way.”
Meanwhile, Bengal skipper Sudip Chatterjee said: “We have played well in the match and fought till the last ball. The run out on the last ball forced the match to go into super over, till then it was our match. Super over can be anyone’s game, we have played good cricket. There are lots of positives to take and look forward.”
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