Kolkata: Despite a half century from the Bengal captain Manoj Tiwari, Kalighat Club failed to win their match against East Bengal in the J.C.Mukerjee Trophy final. East Bengal has won its second trophy of the season by winning this match.
Batting first in the T20 game, East Bengal launched a score of 152/8 at the end of 20 overs. In reply to this, Kalighat Club finished at 138/7 resulting in the Kolkata giants to win the match by 14 runs.
Samik Karmakar was the highest scorer for East Bengal with 34 runs, while the side’s skipper Arnab Nandi who scored a brilliant 33 out of 19 balls and took his side’s score past the 150 mark. Kalighat had a decent bowling performance as 4 out of their 5 bowlers scalped a wicket each.
Kalighat started their batting innings brilliantly when Ambhimanyu Easwaran made 25, Aamir Gani scoring 37 while Captain Manjoy Tiwary scoring a 51. However the middle and lower order of the team failed to contribute as rest of the players were dismissed with single digit scores. Manoj who was adamant to see his team win scored a brilliant 51 from 34 deliveries, which had 3 fours and 2 sixes couldn’t find any partner to give his side a win. In the end Kalighat had to give up for 138/7 at the end of 20 overs after Sourav Mondal and Ishan Porel bagged two wickets each.
“East Bengal club plays for being the Champions. We play together as a unit and hence the team is not a player oriented side which was not in case of Kalighat who was solely dependent on Manoj Tiwary. The moment Tiwary was dismissed, they lost the game. Each of the players contributed for the victory as everyone plays with passion. Our next aim is to win the CAB Super League and we would try our level best to win it” said East Bengal captain Arnab Nandi.
“I wanted to play against Kalighat as it is always a pleasure to play against a tough competitor. The tougher the opponent is, the more it will help me to keep calm under pressure conditions in the future and I took the opponent sportingly. I was practicing the yorkers for the T20 format, and it really helped me in the game. I want to concentrate on the basics and would love to win the upcoming CAB League” said Ishan Porel who was adjudged the Man of the Match.