August 20 saw two closely contested matches in the Maharaja Trophy KSCA T20 2022. Let’s look at the match report for Match 25th and 26th.
Match 25: Mangalore United vs Salem Spartans
The fifth and sixth teams met in match 25th for an opportunity to catch up with the rest four. It was Mangalore United who grabbed the opportunity with SS scraping the bottom of the table.
SS won the toss and elected to bowl first. The decision proved right as MU lost their first wicket at seven runs only. Nikin Jose (38) and Abhinav Manohar (36) stitched together a decent partnership to take the team to a score of 136/8. Krisnappa Gowtham, KC Cariappa and Avinash D took two wickets each to halt MU to a small total.
Captain Gowtham (72) and Stalin Hoover (53*) took the run chase by the scruff of the neck and helped SS to their second win in just 12.2 overs. Despite winning the SS team stay at the bottom of the Maharaja Trophy points table.
Brief Scoreboard:
MU: 136/8
Nikin Jose: 38(37), Abhinav Manohar: 36(25)
HS Sharath: 1-3-1, Shashi Kumar: 3-28-1
SS: 137/2
Krishnappa Gowtham: 72(32), Stalin Hoover: 53(35)
Krishnappa Gowtham: 4-11-2, Avinash D: 4-32-2
Match 26: Bengaluru Blasters vs Mysore Warriors
The 26th match brought table toppers Bengaluru against Mysore Warriors who has similar points in similar matches. It was an opportunity for both to take a lead at the top of the table and BB took it.
MW won the toss and elected to bowl first a decision that did not prove to be correct as the BB openers stitched together 61 runs for the first wicket partnership. Towards the end, it was Jagadeesha Suchith who made a quickfire 40 off of just 18 deliveries with six boundaries and one maximum. BB posted 157/6 on the board despite Shreyas Gopal taking three wickets.
Chasing what seemed like a decent total, the MW team faltered at the word get-go. They lost both of their openers cheaply and were struggling at 30/4 in 6.3 overs. They struggled compounded ever further as they found themselves at 70/7 in 12.2 overs. None of the batters apart from Shreyas Gopal (50) and Pavan Deshpande (20) could come up with an important knock. MU could only make 134 runs in 20 overs and lost the match by 23 runs.
Rishi Bopanna with three wickets was the highest wicket-taker for BB.
Brief Score:
BB: 157/6
Jagadeesha Suchith: 40(18), Mayank Agarwal: 31(25)
Rishi Bopanna: 4-31-3, Ronit More: 4-18-2
MW: 134/9
Shreyas Gopal: 50(42), Pavan Deshpande: 20(23)
Shreyas Gopal: 4-19-3, Shubhang Hegde: 4-23-1
