Bengaluru Blasters captain Mayank Agarwal was disappointed after his team lost the Maharaja Trophy KSCA T20 2022 final against the Gulbarga Mystics at the M.Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru on Friday by 11 runs. However, at the same time, Agarwal was proud of the way his team fought till the end.
Gulbarga Mystics posted a gargantuan score of 220 runs after Agarwal won the toss and decided to bowl first. The openers – Jeswath Acharya and Rohan Patil – provided a quick start to their team in the PowerPlay overs.
Devdutt Padikkal then scored a fine knock of 56 runs while Manish Pandey added the finishing touches to the score as he scored 41 runs from 17 balls.
On the other hand, Bengaluru Blasters got off to a worse possible start as they lost five wickets for only 63 runs on the board. However, LR Chethan and Kranthi Kumar rescued their team out of jail as they added 98 runs for the sixth wicket. Chethan scored 91 runs while Kumar added 47 runs in quick time.
Agarwal gave a lot of credit to the duo for fighting it out in the middle despite their efforts going in vain.
Mayank Agarwal said in the post-match presentation, “The fight everyone put up was fantastic. The never die attitude was there but Chethan and Kranthi showed the fight. We knew the wicket would get better to bat on, but we lost three quick wickets. LR and Kranthi did really well to get us close. The team was fantastic. Big credit to them for the way they fought and played through the league stage. Different people stepped up at different times. LR Chethan has been the find of the tournament. Our fans were the backbone for us.”
Meanwhile, Rohan Patil was awarded the Player of the tournament for scoring 397 runs in 12 matches at an average of 39.7 and a strike rate of 166.81. Patil also scored 38 runs off just 21 balls in the all-important final
He said after the game, “Really proud of my team and the way Manish Pandey led the team. I’ll continue this performance. We tried to hit as fast as possible in the powerplay. Proud of the way Dev and Pandey continued in the end. As a bowling unit as well we came pretty hard.”
