Maharaja Trophy KSCA T20: Mysuru Warriors beat Gulbarga Mystics for first victory of the campaign

The Mysuru Warriors won their first match of this year's edition of the Maharaja Trophy KSCA T20, beating the Gulbarga Mystics by 54 runs, here on Wednesday.

Warriors' victory was propelled by the all-round performance from Manoj Bhandage (32 not out and 4-19) and a half-century by skipper Karun Nair (57).

Put into bat by the Gulbarga Mystics, Mysore Warriors lost an early wicket as opener CA Karthik (13) fell to the in-form, Abhilash Shetty, in the third over.

However, an abundance of runs came through the bat of Ravikumar Samarth (48), who took the team to a reasonable score of 48-1 by the end of the powerplay.

Mysuru Warriors skipper Karun Nair came in at No.3 and accelerated the innings along with Samarth to take the team total to 85-1 at the halfway mark. The duo added 91 runs off 62 balls for the second wicket before Samarth was bowled for 48 runs off 38 balls by veteran leg-spinner Amit Verma.

Nair continued his sublime form and made full use of a life granted earlier in the innings through a botched stumping. He brought up his second consecutive half-century, reaching the landmark in 33 balls.

Jagadeesha Suchith (17) was promoted to no.4 and immediately smashed a couple of sixes before ending up as Abhilash Shetty’s second wicket for the night thanks to an absolute blinder taken by Macneil Noronha at deep mid-wicket.

Karun Nair perished in the following over, having scored 57 runs from 39 balls, with the score reading 140-4 at the end of the 16th over. Manoj Bhandage (32 not out off 15 balls) and Shivkumar Rakshith (21 off 8 balls) found the boundary on plenty of occasions to take the team to a final score of 198-5. Abhilash Shetty was the pick of the Gulbarga bowlers finishing with figures of 3/ 49.

In reply, the Gulbarga Mystics found no trouble in accumulating runs swiftly as openers LR Chethan (44 off 35 balls) and Aadarsh Prajwal (16) added 48 runs before the latter was dismissed by CA Karthik in the fifth over. KV Aneesh was out on the final ball of the powerplay attempting to loft Mysore's Impact Player Shreesha Achar, to leave the scoreboard reading 57-2.

Southpaw R Smaran (15) and LR Chethan kept the scoreboard ticking, coupling singles with timely boundaries before the latter was dismissed by a bouncer from pacer Monish Reddy in the eleventh over. This was followed by Smaran being bowled by M Venkatesh in the next over leaving Gulbarga reeling at 88-4. Just as Macneil Noronha (20) seemed to be picking up the pace of the innings, he was caught behind off left-arm spinner Jagadeesha Suchith in the fifteenth over.

Pacer Manoj Bhandage picked up the wickets of Amit Verma (7), D Avinash (9) and Sourabh Muttur (1) in the sixteenth over.

With 73 runs required of the final four overs, the equation seemed improbable. Gulbarga skipper Vyshak Vijaykumar (10) fell to Bhandage in the 18th over and Hardik Raj (6) to off-spinner Shashi Kumar K in the next over to hand Mysuru a comfortable victory of 54 runs. The Gulbarga Mystics finished on 144/10 in 19 overs.

Brief scores:

Mysore Warriors 198/5 in 20 overs (Karun Nair 57, Ravikumar Samarth 48, Manoj Bhandage 32 not out; Abhilash Shetty 3/49, Amit Verma 1/24) beat Gulbarga Mystics 144/10 in 19 overs (LR Chethan 44, Macneil Noronha 20; Manoj Bhandage 4/19, Codanda Ajit Karthik 1/140 by 54 runs.