In a massive upset, Tripura beat defending champions Saurashtra in a Vijay Hazare Trophy match at the KSCA Cricket Ground in Alur today (November 27), making it their first victory over them in any format.
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Both Tripura, led by Wriddhiman Saha, and Saurashtra, led by Jaydev Unadkat, came into this game with one victory from their first two matches. Saurashtra, who are the defending champions, having won the last season of the Vijay Hazare Trophy by beating Maharashtra in the final, won the toss and elected to field first.
Tripura have never won the Vijay Hazare Trophy, nor had they ever beaten Saurashtra in any game in any format before today. They started poorly with the bat, losing opener Pallab Das in the third over. Bikramkumar Das and former Bengal player Sudip Chatterjee then stitched a 99-run partnership for the second wicket.
Ganesh Satish (71 off 74) and Manisankar Murasingh (25 off 23) provided the necessary impetus to the innings as Tripura managed to get past 250 to finish on a competitive total of 258-8. Unadkat, the Saurashtra captain, was at his usual best, picking up another five-for.
In response, however, the Saurashtra batting order, which boasted stalwarts like Sheldon Jackson, Cheteshwar Pujara, Prerak Mankad and more, faltered.
They lost three wickets in the first six overs, with Murasingh taking two and Rana Dutta taking one. Pujara and Arpit Vasavada provided some resistance, but not for long. Pujara was trapped in front by Bikramjit Debnath in the 15th over, before Vasavada was bowled in the next by Abhijit Sarkar to leave Saurashtra in tatters at 53-5.
The story of the match, however, was yet to come. 18-year-old Joydeb Deb, playing just his second List A game, was the fifth bowler to come into the attack. Most cricket databases have him listed as a wicket-keeper batter. It might be a case of error in data entry common among not-so-well-known players who are just starting off.
That might soon change after his heroics today (November 27). Deb took each of the last five Saurashtra wickets in a seven-over spell, bowling them out for 110 and taking his team to a 148-run victory against a team they had never beaten before.
Deb finished with figures of 5-15 from 6.4 overs. With this victory, Tripura have jumped to second on the points table in Group A with eight points from three games, while Saurashtra are languishing on sixth.
