After winning their first two matches against Tripura and Jharkhand, Odisha suffered a 24-run defeat at the hands of Bengal in the Syed Mutaq Ali Trophy East Zone Senior Men T20 League at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata today. Put into bat, host Bengal made a competitive total of 145 for seven in 20 overs and then bowled out Odisha for 121 in 18.4 overs.

Sayan Ghosh and Pragyan Ojha played important roles in the Bengal win, taking three and two wickets respectively. Debutant Subhranshu Senapati (41 off 42) was the only Odisha batsman from the top six who got into double figures as they were reduced to 39 for five in the ninth over of their chase. Devendra Kunwar, who also made his T20 debut for Odisha, failed to open his account.

Earlier, Bengal were reduced to 67 for five in 12th over, thanks to medium-pacers Basant Mohanty (2-39) and Deepak Behera (2-16) who took the first four wickets between them. Odisha will play their fourth and last league match against Assam on February 5.

SCOREBOARD:
BENGAL: S Goswami c&b D Singh 33, W Saha c D Singh b Mohanty 10, A Raman c D Singh b Behera 5, M Tiwary c Sarangi b Behera 1, P Chandila b Patel 28, P Shaw c Pradhan b Patel 5, W Chatterjee c Sarangi b Mohanty 37, K Seth (not out) 22, A Dinda (not out) 0; Extras (w-2, nb-2) 4
Total (7 wkts; 20 overs) 145
Fall of wickets: 1-24 (Saha, 3.5 ov), 2-39 (Raman, 5.2 ov), 3-41 (Tiwary, 5.6 ov), 4-57 (Goswami, 8.6 ov), 5-67 (Shaw, 11.3 ov), 6-94 (Chandila, 15.6 ov), 7-133 (Chatterjee, 19.2 ov)
Bowling: Suryakant Pradhan 4-0-41-0, Basant Mohanty 4-0-39-2, Deepak Behera 3-0-16-2, Biplab Samantray 1-0-8-0, Dhiraj Singh 4-0-23-1, Paresh Patel 4-0-18-2

ODISHA: Devendra Kunwar c Tiwary b Dinda 0, Paresh Patel b Seth 7, Anurag Sarangi run out (Shaw) 4, Subhranshu Senapati c Shaw b Ojha 41, Abhilash Mallick c Goswami b Chandila 1, Biplab Samantray c&b Ghosh 0, Abhishek Yadav c Chandila b Chatterjee 23, Deepak Behera c Chatterjee b Ojha 10, Suryakant Pradhan c Dinda b Ghosh 14, Basant Mohanty c Saha b Ghosh 19, Dhiraj Singh not out 0; Extras (lb-1, w-1) 2
Total (all out; 18.4 overs) 121
Fall of wickets: 1-0 (Kunwar, 0.1 ov), 2-5 (Sarangi, 0.4 ov), 3-20 (Patel, 5.3 ov), 4-34 (Mallick, 7.5 ov), 5-39 (Samantray, 8.3 ov), 6-71 (Senapati, 13.3 ov), 7-78 (Abhishek Yadav, 14.1 ov), 8-90 (Behera, 15.4 ov), 9-103 (Pradhan, 16.3 ov), 10-121 (Mohanty, 18.4 ov)
Bowling: Ashok Dinda 4-0-21-1, K Seth 4-0-10-1, S Ghosh 3.4-0-25-3, P Chandila 2-0-15-1, Pragyan Ojha 3-0-29-2, W Chatterjee 2-0-20-1