Kolkata: Mohun Bagan lifted its second trophy of the local cricket season by winning the JC Mukherjee Trophy. In the final played under the lights at Eden Gardens, Mohun Bagan defeated Tollygunje Agragami by 9 wickets.
After winning the toss and batting first, Tollygunje posted 124/8 in 20 overs. Amitava Chakraborty was the top scorer for Tollygunje with 43 runs. Joyjit Basu of Mohun Bagan claimed four wickets for 20 runs.
In reply, Mohun Bagan made a mockery of the chase as they cruised home in just 7.5 overs. Man of the Match Vivek Singh was the top scorer for Mohun Bagan with 72 runs of only 21 balls. His knock was decorated with 8 boundaries and 6 sixes. Wriddhiman Saha and Debabrata Das scored quick fire 22* and 28* respectively. The opening pair of Vivek & Wriddhiman put on 85 runs in just 30 balls.
Mohun Bagan now has won two trophies in local cricket season. The Green and Maroon cricketers lifted the Senior Knock Out trophy few days back defeating Kalighat by 5 wickets.
Man of Match for the final Vivek Singh later said, “We were confident of doing well in the final as we were a better team. I would like to credit Wriddhi for my knock as he was continuously backing me to play shots from the other end.”
In the first semi final Mohun Bagan outplayed Sporting Union by 83 runs. Put in to bat, Mohun Bagan rode on Wriddhiman Saha’s blitzkrieg to score 187/6. Saha scored 73 runs off only 39 balls that included 5 hits to the fence and 4 sixes. He was well supported by Anustup Majumder 31(26) and Sanjib Sanyal 31*(14). Rishi Sharma took 3 wickets for Sporting. Chasing 188 runs to win, Sporting got bundled for 104 runs in 18.4 overs.
Vivek Singh picked 4 wickets for 27 runs while Md Shami took one wicket. Saha was declared the M.O.M.
In the second semi final Tollygunje Agragami defeated Bhawanipur by 23 runs. Tollygunje opted to bat first after winning the toss. They posted 142/8 in their stipulated 20 overs. Anup Kumar Banik was the top scorer with 29 runs from 18 balls. Writtick Chatterjee of Bhawanipur took 3 wickets for 23 runs. In reply Bahwanipur was bowled out for 119 runs in 18.3 overs. Sanjib Goyel took 3 wickets for 26 runs. Anup Kumar Banik too chipped in with 2 wickets.
The semi-finals and final were played under the lights with colour clothes. The electronic scoreboard flashed the fours and sixes. The DJ’s added more entertainment to the matches giving it a feel of the IPL matches played here few days back.
According to Wriddhiman, “It was lovely to see such an atmosphere for local cricket. It was more like what we used to see during IPL matches. All credit should go to Dada (Sourav Ganguly) for making the JC Mukherjee matches entertaining.”