A precious half-century by Anurag Sarangi and a three-wicket haul by pacer Suryakant Pradhan helped Odisha beat Jharkhand by three wickets in a hard-fought match of the Syed Mustaq Ali Trophy Senior Men East Zone T20 League at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata today. This was the second win in as many matches for Odisha, who had defeated Tripura by 10 runs in their first match two days ago. Odisha will next meet host Bengal on February 3.
Put into bat by Odisha captain Biplab Samantaray, Jharkhand compiled a competitive total of 149 for five in the stipulated 20 overs. Pradhan was most successful Odisha bowler, taking three wickets for 19 runs. In reply, Odisha overhauled the target, losing seven wickets in the process.
After early departure of Sandeep Pattnaik, Paresh Patel and Sarangi put on 61 runs for the second wicket to put Odisha in a strong position. Patel made a 30-ball 35 with the help of three fours and two sixes before he was caught by Ishank Jaggi off the bowling of Rahul Shukla.
Sarangi was the top scorer with a 48-ball 58. This was his maiden T20 half-century and his match-winning knock was studded with six boundaries. But despite impressive batting efforts of Sarangi and Patel, Odisha, at one stage, were in trouble, losing five wickets for 119 for five in 18 overs. However, a 10-ball cameo unbeaten knock of 26 (2x4, 2x6) by Abhishek Yadav helped them clinch victory with one ball to spare.
SCOREBOARD:
JHARKHAND: Ishank Jaggi c D Singh b Pradhan 47, Virat Singh c Mallick b Pradhan 8, Saurabh Tiwary c A Singh b Pradhan 0, Pratyush Singh st Mallick b D Singh 20, Kumar Deobrat (not out) 44, Kaushal Singh lbw Behera 0, Sumit Kumar (not out) 10; Extras (nb-3, w-9, b-6, lb-2) 20
Total (5 wkts; 20 overs) 149
Fall of wickets: 1-13 (Virat Singh, 2.3 ov), 2-27 (Saurabh Tiwary, 4.1 ov), 3-64 (Pratyush Singh, 8.5 ov), 4-111 (Ishank Jaggi, 16.4 ov), 5-119 (Kaushal Singh, 17.2 ov)
Bowling: Suryakant Pradhan 4-0-19-3, Basant Mohanty 4-0-33-0, Deepak Behera 3-0-30-1, Biplab Samantaray 4-0-31-0, Dhiraj Singh 4-0-23-1, Paresh Patel 1-0-5-0
ODISHA: Sandeep Pattanaik c M Kumar b Aaron 6, Paresh Patel c Jaggi b Shukla 35, Anurag Sarangi c Jaggi b Aaron 58, Biplab Samantaray c V Singh b K Singh 14, Arabind Singh run out (Sumit Kumar) 1, Abhishek Yadav (not out) 26, Deepak Behera c & b Shukla 1, Suryakant Pradhan b Nadeem 4, Abhilash Mallick (not out) 0; Extras (nb-3, w-2, b-0, lb-3) 8
Total (7 wkts; 19.5 overs) 153
Fall of wickets: 1-18 (Sandeep Pattanaik, 3.5 ov), 2-79 (Paresh Patel, 12.1 ov), 3-109 (Biplab Samantaray, 14.6 ov), 4-119 (Arabind Singh, 16.6 ov), 5-119 (Anurag Sarangi, 17.2 ov), 6-129 (Deepak Behera, 18.4 ov), 7-139 (Suryakant Pradhan, 19.2 ov)
Bowling: Monu Kumar 4-0-16-0, Varun Aaron 4-0-23-2, Rahul Shukla 4-0-29-2, Kaushal Singh 4-0-31-1, Shahbaz Nadeem 3.5-0-51-1