Tamil Nadu’s unbeaten run in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy continued, as they beat Bengal by eight wickets in the Elite Group B match at Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Monday. With 20 points from five matches, Dinesh Karthik-led side qualified for the quarterfinals as the top placed team.
Chasing 164 after opting to field first, skipper Karthik and opener N Jagadeesan were once again in the middle of a crucial partnership in a must-win encounter. The duo stitched an unbroken 110-run stand for the third wicket after C Hari Nishaanth and KB Arun Karthick fell for 14 and 30 respectively. Jagadeesan, who is in red-hot form, notched up his fourth half-century of the T20 tournament and became the leading scorer of the tournament with 315 runs from five matches.
It was only after 11 overs that he upped the ante to remain unbeaten on 71 off 45 balls — after having scored just 15 off the first 22 balls. His innings comprised of six fours and four sixes. Karthik scored a 31-ball 47, which included seven fours.
Earlier, Bengal’s Kaif Ahmad’s unbeaten 63 and skipper Anustup Majumdar’s 34 propelled the home team to 163 for eight after early jitters. For Tamil Nadu, spinners Baba Aparajith, R Sai Kishore and Murugan Ashwin shared four wickets between them, while pacer G Periyasamy scalped one. Defending champions Karnataka also remained in the hunt for the last-eight berth, securing a five-wicket win over Uttar Pradesh that took their net run-rate to 0.292 in Group C.
Brief scores: At Kolkata: Bengal 163/8 in 20 ovs (Ahmad 63 n.o, Majumdar 34; Aparajith 2/20) lost to TN 167/2 in 18 ovs (Jagadeesan 71 n.o, Karthik 47 n.o); Assam 148/5 in 20 ovs (Riyan Parag 42, Rajjakuddin Ahmed 32) lost to Odisha 154/6 in 19 ovs (Subhransu Senapati 64). Hyderabad 139/9 9 in 20 ovs (B Sandeep 37, Vivekanand Tiwari 3/25, Vikash Singh 3/36) tied Jharkhand 139/9 in 20 ovs (Ajay Dev Goud 4/22). At Bengaluru: UP 132/8 in 20 ovs (Abhishek Goswami 47, Karan Sharma 41; J Suchith 3/21, Praveen Dubey 3/15) lost to Karnataka 136/5 in 19.3 ovs (Shreyas Gopal 47 n.o).