Kolkata: Riding on Sourav Halder’s hat-trick and Abhishek Porel’s half century, Kolkata Royal Tigers bagged their first victory of the Bengal T20 League Season 3 after a hard-fought one-run victory over Servotech Siliguri Strikers at the Eden Gardens on Monday.
Put into bat, Royal Tigers posted 147/9 in 20 overs. Abishek Porel (76 off 53) and Ritwik Roy Chowdhury (33 off 27) were the pick of the batters.
For Siliguri Strikers, Ishan Porel (3-24), Geet Puri (2-28) and Kaushik Maity (2-17) were the star bowlers.
Chasing the target, Karan (46 off 35) and Sudip Chatterjee (35 off 31) gave Siliguri Strikers a fine start. Vishal Bhati (18 off 15) also chipped in with a handy knock.
Against the run of play, Sourav brought Royal Tigers back into game in the 13th over, dismissing Vishal in the fourth ball followed by Snehasish Saha (0) and Badal Singh Balyan (0) in the fifth and sixth ball respectively to become the second bowler to bag a hat-trick in the league’s history after Md Shami’s feat earlier in the tournament this season.
Despite the quick wickets, Pramod Chandila (35 off 23) gave Siliguri Strikers some hope but Sayan bagged two crucial wickets in the final over to help team script first win. Siliguri Strikers fell short scoring 146/7 in 20 overs.
Sourav was the star bowler for Royal Tigers bagging 4 for 22 while Sayan Ghosh (2-25) and Ashutosh Kumar (1-25) also impressed.
