Ritwik Roy Chowdhury (36 not out off 18 balls) tried his best but Bengal could not come up with the best plan in their Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy quarter-final match against Karnataka and that resulted in their ouster.

Chasing 161 at the Kotla in New Delhi, Bengal needed 20 from the final over. Ritwik had the strike and unleashed a couple of sixes off the first two balls of the over from Vidyadhar Patil. Then he took a single and gave the strike over to Akash Deep, who too struck a boundary and then stole a couple to make it one run required off the last ball.

However, Karnataka captain Manish Pandey got Akash run out with a direct throw, which forced a Super Over. What followed thereafter was a very strange decision by Bengal to sent Kaif Ahmed, who had laboured to 20 off 26 deliveries earlier in the game, along with Ritwik to bat in the Super Over. Even more baffling was Kaif taking first strike when Ritwik should have been the one to do so.

Kaif lasted just two balls and Bengal scored only five runs. Karnataka then got the required runs in just two balls. “It were the players who decided that Kaif would take first strike, which shouldn’t have been the case,” head coach Arun Lal said.

Brief scores:

Karnataka 160/5 in 20 ovs (K. Nair 55 n.o.). Bengal 160/8 (W. Chatterjee 51, R. Roy Chowdhury 36 n.o.; M. Darshan 3/26). Karnataka won via Super Over.