Kolkata: Mohun Bagan defeated East Bengal by a hair’s breadth in a hard-fought derby in the Bengal T20 Challenge here at Eden Gardens on Saturday (November 28).
Bagan won the toss and elected to bat on a wicket that kept low and aided the bowlers. They posted a fighting 121 for 5. Their traditional rivals finished a run short at 120 for 8 from their allotted quota.
Bagan rode captain Anustup Majumdar’s fluent 55 and opener Vivek Singh’s fighting 41 to reach the total after Kanishk Seth (31/3) did some express bowling and some controlled pace from Mukesh Kumar who went wicketless though.
But the highlight of the match was Anustup’s innings who took the game to the rivals with some classy strokeplay. He creamed seven boundaries and a six en route to his 37-ball 55. Earlier it was Vivek Singh who negotiated the opening EB bowlers and still managed a fine 41 off 44 balls with five hits to the fence and a six.
Bagan captain Anustup said, “Derby match is always something special and exciting, obviously we are very happy to win this game. Personally, I have played well and helped my team win this important game, that feels good. There more matches left to play but derby win will always be special.”
East Bengal began the chase disastrously losing three wickets for nine runs. Ranjot Khaira (18) and Sayan Mondal offered some resistance before another collapse.
Then Sayan joined forces with Sujit Yadav (run a ball 15) and raised hopes of snatching a victory and went really close. Needing three runs off the last ball of the match, EB missed out on forcing a super over as Sayan was run out trying to run a risky second. He finished on 52 off 55 balls in a losing cause.
Writtick Chatterjee was wrecker-in-chief of the victory with the ball as the Bagan spinner bagged 3 crucial wickets leaking just 6 runs to leave the EB batting up reeling.
