Batsmen undid all the good work from the bowlers earlier on as Bengal suffered a 10-run defeat to Mumbai in their third game of this Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy at the Barsapara Cricket Stadium in Guwahati on Saturday.

Restricting Mumbai to a modest total of 131/7 after they opted to bat first, Bengal looked on course for victory when 34 were required off the last four overs with six wickets in hand. That wasn’t too tough a scenario, but a middle-order collapse helped Mumbai to limit Bengal to 121/8.

The quick dismissals of set batsmen Kaif Ahmed (31) and Ritwik Roy Choudhury (30) turned the game in Mumbai’s favour. For Mumbai, Mohit Avasthi struck thrice while Tushar Deshpande took two wickets.

What’s worrying for Bengal is their slipping to No.3 in Group B with Mumbai occupying the second spot, while Karnataka are on top.

“Yeah, it’s a bit of a setback as winning this game would’ve kept us in a much better position,” agreed Bengal assistant coach Sourashish Lahiri. “We now have to come back stronger in our next game (versus Services on Monday).”

Bengal’s ploy to go in with an extra spinner in the form of Pradipta Pramanik, who replaced Ishan Porel, worked as he did well to concede only 17 off his three overs and take a wicket. The other two spinners, Shahbaz Ahmed (1/26) and Writtick Chatterjee (2/19), also did a good job to bottle up the rival batsmen.

Gaikwad show

In Lucknow, Ruturaj Gaikwad scored his third straight half-century (81 off 47 balls) and powered Maharashtra to a 27-run win over Odisha in a Group A match.

After scoring fifties against Tamil Nadu and Punjab, the stylish right-handed batsman toyed with the Odisha attack and shared a 131-run partnership for the second wicket with Kedar Jadhav, who hit 55 from 35 balls. The quickfire partnership, which came in less than 12 overs, put Maharashtra on track for a big total.