BHUBANESWAR 04-Aug-2014 137
Odisha ended their campaign on a winning note in the Dr K Thimmappiah Memorial All-India Cricket Tournament, trouncing Tripura by eight wickets on the fourth and last day of their last Zone-A league match at BGS ground in Bangalore today.
The thumping win came as a consolation for Odisha, who earlier lost their first two matches against Haryana and KSCA XI by two wickets and 136 runs respectively.
Forced to follow on after conceding a 202-run first innings lead, Tripura, however, managed to avoid an innings defeat by making 256 in the second innings. Among the Odisha bowlers, pacer Alok Mangaraj and captain Biplab Samantray scalped three wickets apiece.
Chasing a victory target of 55, Odisha lost the wickets of Paresh Patel and Abhilash Mallick cheaply before an unbeaten 26 each by captain Samantray and vice-captain Govind Poddar enabled them to romp home in 7.4 overs.
Earlier, electing to bat, Odisha rode on a century by Aravind Singh and half-century each by Samantray and wicket-keeper Subhrajit Sahoo to compile a strong first-innings total of 321. Aravind slammed 109 (278 balls, 7x4, 1x6), Biplab hit 88 (178 balls, 9x4, 1x6) and Subhrajit cracked 58 (113 balls, 6x4, 1x6). Odisha, of course, started off on a disastrous note, losing three wickets for 21 runs.
But a 172-run partnership for the fourth wicket between Aravind and Biplab helped them overcome the top-order failure. Subhrajit further consolidated the innings putting on 71 runs for the eighth-wicket partnership with Preetamjeet, who hit a patient 28 off 102 balls. In reply, Tripura were bundled out for 119 with Samantray taking three wickets and Alok Mangaraj and Preetamjeet Das picking up a brace each.
BRIEF SCORE: Odisha 321 all out in 132 overs (Aravind Singh 109, Biplab Samantray 88, Subhrajit Sahoo 58, Preetamjeet Das 28; Abhijit Sarkar 4/72, Rana Dutta 3/60, Tushar Saha 2/57) and 58 for 2 in 7.4 overs (Govind Poddar 26 n.o, Biplab Samantray 26 n.o) beat Tripura 119 all out in 65 overs (Abhijit Dey 22; Biplab Samantray 3/16, Alok Mangaraj 2/29, Preetamjeet Das 2/32) and 256 all out in 143.5 overs (Rajib Saha 50, NS Choudhary 49, Tushar Saha 42, Sanjay Majumdar 27 n.o, Abhijit Dey 24, Udiyan Bose 21; Dhiraj Singh 3/48, Alok Mangaraj 3/76) by 8 wkts.
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PHOTO: Ton-maker Aravind Singh
