Cuttack: Hosts Odisha suffered their second consecutive defeat going down by 10 runs in their Group D encounter of the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 cricket against Haryana at the Barabati Stadium here, Friday.
The batsmen again came a cropper against the Haryana attack against the modest Haryana attacks after the Odisha bowlers had put up a very good effort to restrict the visitors to 141 all out in 19.5 overs.
However, the failure of the batsmen, save Biplab Samantray (48, 28b, 5×6) was again the root cause for Odisha’s defeat. Aravind Singh who scored 34 (30b, 3×4, 1×6) batted well, but it was a tad too slow. Also most of the other batsmen consumed more deliveries than they scored and that compounded Odisha’s problems.
Anurag Sarangi (16 off 18 balls), Rajesh Dhupar (4 off 14 balls), Subhransu Senapati (1 off 3 balls) and Govind Poddar (21 off 25 balls) all contributed to the increase in the required run rate. When Govind was dismissed, Odisha’s score read 51 for four in 11 overs meaning they had to score 90 in the last nine overs. Biplab and Aravind tried their best, but the former’s run out with five deliveries remaining drove the final nail in the coffin for Odisha. The hosts finished on 131 for five in their 20 overs.
Earlier, after being put in, Haryana failed to get going against the pace of Surykant Pradhan (3/31) and left-arm spinner Pappu Roy who bowled brilliantly to concede just nine runs in his quota of four overs picking three wickets in the process. Quite a few Haryana batsmen got into double figures, but then as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals, their innings never gathered momentum.
Brief scores: Haryana 141 in 19.5 overs (H Rana 25, Pappu Roy 3/9, Suryakant Pradhan 3/31) beat Odisha 131 for 5 (Biplab Samantray 48, A Chahal 2/27) by 10 runs.
PNN