Bengaluru 19th August : Gulbarga Mystics raced to a stunning victory of 28 runs against Mangalore United in the Maharaja Trophy KSCA T20 cricket tournament at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Friday. It was a crucial victory for the Gulbarga Mystics as it kept them in the race to reach the knockout phase next week.With their fifth win in eight matches The Mystics have risen to the top of the table with 10 points.
This is which is the identical to Bengaluru Blasters and Mysore Warriors at the end of eight matches for all six teams in the race with the top four teams teams going into the knockout phase.
The Blasters are the best with an improved net run rate, followed by the Mystics and the Warriors.
With a hefty goal of the 165 mark to win The United batsmen were difficult from the start and losing of three wickets early in seven overs made the challenge all the more difficult.
Abhinav Manohar (51 34 balls 4×2 6×3) kept the United in the chase with an impressive strike, but when he was dismissed from the opening ball of the 18th over, the ball was out of range of the weak United tail.
A desperate Manohar was chasing an uninspiringly wide and short delivery from the young leg-spinner Kushaal Waddhwani, but only managed to steal it off K.L.Shrijith.
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Shashi Kumar made an unassuming attempt to win an unlikely victory by slamming Wadhwani to three boundaries of the final three balls of the same over, but it was like the saying goes too little, too late.
Young Wadhwani was once again impressive and finished with figures of 3-48.
Prior to that, in the initial innings Captain Manish Pandey was on top when it was needed the most to guide Gulbarga Mystics to a fighting 164-6.A spirited performance from C.A.Karthik who had an impressive 38 runs off 32 balls, and bagged two wickets and gave away only nine runs, helped win the match for Mystics.
Incoming in to bat, when the team was in a bit of an awkward position at 55-4 in the eighth over Pandey was patient to get settled in an important battle.
There was also the possibility of a spot in the playoffs with the winners joining table-toppers Bengaluru Blasters and Mysore Warriors with 10 points each, and two matches remaining for all six teams in the race.
The Mystics began with a shaky start, losing two wickets in the fourth over following being put in bat by United.The opener Devdutt Padikkal, who had helped his team win a rout just a few hours ago with a 60-ball 78 against the Blasters He was extremely anxious when the odd ball was kept low.
After a delightful time at the crease, for an uninteresting 25-off-22 balls (4×4) The left-handed youngster was struck by an arm-ball by K.Shashi Kumar which caused him to cramp and then was able to slip through to hit the stumps.
Pandey Pandey, who will be remembered for the first Indian batsman to achieve 100 runs in the Indian Premier League (IPL) way back in 2009 He found a suitable partner in Ajit Karthik (38 32 balls 4×3 6×1) and they added 82 runs to the sixth wicket, before the Indian international (58 48 balls 4×4 6×2) was unable to finish the job after taking an enormous hit before getting stuck on the fence with the score at 139.10 and 10 balls left.
However, Ritesh Bhatkal was able to provide the needed fireworks, by dragging the ball he was facing over the long-on for six.He hit another max, flat and hard on deep midwicket from the third ball of the last over .He ended the game with an impressive finish -with a thick-edged boundary on the short third man as Gulbarga ended on a gruelling 164 for six.
Brief scores:
Gulbarga Mystics 164-6 (Devdutt Padikkal 25, Manish Pandey 58, Ajit Karthik 38*, Ritesh Bhatkal 18*; H.S Sharath 2-43, Vijaykumar Vyshak 2-31) bt Mangalore United 136 all out in 18.4 overs (Abhinav Manohar 51, Sujay Sateri 22; Ajith Karthik 2-9, Pranav Bhatia 226 and Kushaal Wadhwani 348) with a run difference of 28
Shivamogga Strikers 146-5 (B.R.Sharath 36, Stalin Hoover 38, Siddharth 23, S Chaitanya S 32 V Koushik 229) defeated by Hubli Tigers, 149-2 in 17.2 overs (Luvnith Sisodia 62, B.U.Shiva Kumar 61*) by eight wickets.
BSK
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