Puducherry 177-5 (Aman 74, Shreeram 45, Shami 3-34) beat Bengal 96 (Lal 40, Jayant 4-28, Sidak 3-9) by 81 runs
A smallish target can still do the trick if you bowl straight and field tidily. Puducherry showed as much in Hyderabad, defending 177 with room to spare as Bengal shed nine wickets for 38 and never got close.
The first punch came from captain Aman Khan, who tucked into anything short or full on his way to 74 from 40 balls, an innings dotted with five fours and seven sixes. “We felt 170-odd would keep us in the game; after that it was up to the spinners,” he said later. His 68-run stand with Jashwanth Shreeram (45 off 34) pulled the score from steady to competitive before Mohammed Shami returned to stop the charge. Shami, tidy up front, nicked out Shreeram in the 15th over and Aman in the 19th to finish with 3-34, backing up his 4-13 against Services two days earlier.
Bengal never really got moving. Abhimanyu Easwaran was run-out for 12 after a mix-up, and once that door opened Jayant Yadav barged straight through. The off-spinner, using angles more than turn, picked off four for 28, including top-scorer Karan Lal for 40. “The surface offered just enough grip; my job was to keep it on the stumps,” Jayant noted. Sidak Singh chipped in with 3-9, sliding the ball across the left-handers.
From 58-1 Bengal unravelled to 96 all out, nobody from No.4 down reaching double figures. It left Puducherry with two wins from three and Bengal wondering how a chase that looked routine on paper went so badly wrong. Shami’s assessment was blunt: “We bowled well enough, but 178 is still chaseable. We just didn’t apply ourselves with the bat.”
A tidy, unflashy win then, built on one skipper’s hitting and a collective bowling effort that refused to give anything away.
