Kolkata: An all-round Bengal team thumping the fists in the air at Eden Gardens on Thursday (January 14) when Shreevats Goswami’s classy innings guided them to a six-wicket victory after Ishan Porel and Akash Deep ran riot through Hyderabad batting lineup earlier.
Elected to field Bengal pace duo Ishan and Akash bagged 4 wickets apiece to bowl Hyderabad out for 157 while Shreevats smashed a fluent 48-ball 69 not out to help Bengal score 161/4 and make it three wins in a row.
Confident Shreevats said, “I was confident that if I can bat till the end I will be able to guide my team to victory and that was my only game plan. I knew I have to stick around as we have lost some wickets and I had confidence that I will take it through.”
“The bowlers have bowled really well. Ishan, Akash, Mukesh, the spinners even when Manoj da bowled, it was a good effort. We are fielding well too, catching well and it’s a good sign. With our middle order making more runs, we’ll be unbeaten,” Shreevats added.
“There’s always something to improve from every match. It was a good win as our bowlers have done really well to restrict Hyderabad below 160 after a good start, the wicket played really well too- so it wasn’t an easy task- credit to the bowlers,” he further added while lauding the bowling attack.
Earlier Ishan removed Pragnay Reddy in his first over and Arnab Nandy got rid off Hyderabad skipper Tanmay Agarwal (19) to reduce them to 40/2.
Tilak Varma managed a well-made 30-ball 50 (6*4, 1*6) before being caught by Shreevats off Akash and after that Bengal bowlers did not let the opponent’s batters stitch any big partnership and took the rest of the wickets for 64 runs.
While chasing Vivek Singh started off in his fluent style but couldn’t convert it in a big one as the left-handed batsman was sent back by Kartikeya Kak. Shreevats batted till the end while Bengal lost skipper Anustup Majumder (16), Manoj Tiwary and Kaif Ahmed (10) quickly and Ravi Teja bagged 2 for 28 runs for Hyderabad.
All-rounder Writtick Chatterjee sticked with Bengal keeper by stitching a 73-run partnership as he scored 39 off 28 balls to finish the match with 10 balls left.
Brief Scores: Bengal 161/4 in 18.2 overs (Sreevats Goswami 69*, Sudip Chatterjee 35*, Ravi Teja 2/28) beat Hyderabad 157 all out in 20 overs (Tilak Verma 50, Himalay Agarwal 27, Ishan Porel 4/24, Akash 4/34).
