Manish Pandey smashed a six in the Super Over after a brilliant run out in the last ball of the 20th over to give Karnataka a thrilling win against Bengal in the quarter-finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament on Thursday and enter the semi-finals.
Bengal won the toss and invited Karnataka to bat first and Karnataka scored 160 for five in 20 overs. In reply, Bengal’s team could only manage 160 runs for eight wickets in 20 overs. In the super over, the Bengal team lost both the wickets for five runs in four balls. Karnataka then won the match with Pandey’s six in the Super Over with four balls to spare.
Earlier, Karun Nair (55 not out off 29 balls) played an unbeaten half-century to take Karnataka to a competitive score. Karun hit four fours and three sixes in his innings. For Bengal, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep, Syan Ghosh, Hrithik Chatterjee and Shahbaz Ahmed took one wicket each. Bengal needed 20 runs to win in the last over. Hrithik gave the strike to Akashdeep by taking a run after hitting a six off Vidyadhar Patil’s first two balls. Akashdeep equalized the score by taking first four and then two runs. Bengal needed a run off the last ball but Akashdeep was run out on Pandey’s accurate throw at the other end. MB Darshan took three and Jagdish Suchit took two wickets for Karnataka.
Vidarbha in the last-four after defeating Rajasthan-
Vidarbha beat Rajasthan by nine wickets to make it to the semi-finals of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament played here on Thursday. After winning the toss and electing to bowl, Vidarbha restricted Rajasthan to 84 for eight in 20 overs. Chasing the target, Vidarbha won the match by nine wickets at 87 for one in 14.5 overs thanks to opener Atharva Taide’s 40 not out off 42 balls.
Atharva and Ganesh Satish (28) got Vidarbha off to a great start adding 63 runs for the first wicket. Satish returned to the pavilion in the 11th over, after which Atharva along with captain Akshay Wadkar (11 not out) took the team to the target. In other quarterfinal matches, Tamil Nadu beat Kerala by five wickets and Hyderabad beat Gujarat by 30 runs to make it to the semi-finals.
Semi-final line-up-
- Vidarbha v Karnataka, November 20
- Hyderabad v Tamil Nadu, November 20