CABThe Cricket Association of Bengal

Bengal lose hard-fought quarterfinal to
Karnataka in super over


17th November 2021
Bengal bowed out of Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy after losing a hard-fought quarterfinal match against Karnataka in super over at New Delhi today. Put to bat first Karnataka made 160/5 thanks to Karun Nair's brisk 29-ball 55. While chasing Bengal rode on Writtick Chatterjee's fluent half-century and Ritwik Roy Chowdhury's quickfire 18-ball 36 to tie the first innings score with Karnataka by posting 160/8 in their quota of overs. Batting first in the one over eliminator Bengal batters could post 5 losing 2 wickets which was chased down by Karnataka in 2 balls to end Sudip Chatterjee and men's Syed Mushtaq Ali campaign. 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 having prepared so well with heart and soul, have made mistakes to 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." Earlier Bengal bowlers did well to take wickets in regular intervals, sent back Karnataka batters Manish Pandey (29), Rohan Kadam (30) to not let any big partnership get stitched. Mukesh Kumar, Akash, Sayan Ghosh Writtick and Shahbaz bagged 1 wicket apiece. Bengal skipper Sudip Chatterjee said: "We have played well in the match, fought till the last ball. 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." While chasing despite being reduced to 51/3 losing Abhishek Das, Sreevats Goswami (22) and Sudip (12) early, Writtick batted well to score 40-ball 51 and steady the ship. Kaif Ahamed contributed with 20 while Writtick's whirlwind innings put Bengal on the course of victory till Alsh Deep ran himself out on the last delivery needing 1 off it to win. "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," Bengal coach said when asked about the turning point of the match.



CAB MEDIA DESK
Rio Dutta