Nagpur: Tamil Nadu inflicted a humiliating 69 runs defeat on Bengal in a Group A encounter of the Syed Mustaq Ali T20 at the VCA Ground on Sunday . Left-arm spinner Rahil Shah was the pick of the bowlers for Tamil Nadu as he chipped in with a five-wicket haul .
Batting first, Tamil Nadu scored 151 for eight with Abhinav Mukund top-scoring with 41. Bengal seamer Alok Pratap Singh took 3 for 15 while Mohammed Shami scalped 2 for 30.
Shami, who will be joining the Indian ODI squad in Mumbai on Monday returned with 5 wickets in 2 matches in the ongoing Syed Mustaq Ali T20 tournament .
In reply, Bengal were skittled out for 82 in 15.5 overs with Rahil returning with a figure of 5 for 12.
With Wriddhiman Saha (2) not scoring too many after his 47-ball-81 against Hyderabad on Saturday, skipper Manoj Tiwary’s absence was felt with as many as nine players failing to reach double digits.
Only Shreevats Goswami (31) and Sudip Chatterjee (18) added 49 runs for the third wicket before Bengal lost their last eight wickets for only 24 runs.
Tamil Nadu now have won both their matches and have eight points while Bengal remain on 4 points from two games. On the other hand Bengal must now win at least 3 matches off the remaining 6 matches to have any chance of making it to the Qualifiers.
Alok Pratap Singh, the new boy in the Bengal squad, shone today with the ball picking up 3 important wickets in his 4 overs with an impressive economy rate of just 3.75. “I tried to bowl my best today. But my efforts were rendered useless as the other bowlers conceded a lot of runs in the slog overs. The batting did not click.” said Singh. “ I am just feeling bad that I could not be more useful for my team today.” Singh added.
Bengal coach Sairaj Bahutule was visibly upset with the outcome ,” We lost because we batted badly . Full credit to our bowlers for keeping the total to 151 which was very much achievable . But it’s been our batting that have been letting us down ”
Meanwhile Dinda’s decision to field 4 fast bowlers on a flat batting strip have left many in the dressing room perplexed .
Brief scores: Tamil Nadu 151 for 8 in 20 overs (Abhinav Mukund 41, Anthony Dhas 28, Alok Pratap Singh 3 for 15, Mohd Shami 2 for 30); Bengal: 82 all out in 15.5 overs (Shreevats Goswami 31, Rahil Shah 5 for 12). TN won by 69 runs.