Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy: TN edge past Odisha by 1 run

CHENNAI: Defending champions Tamil Nadu held their nerve to edge past Odisha by 1 run and register their second successive victory at the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 clash in Lucknow on Friday. The defending champions had defeated Maharashtra by 12 runs on Thursday.
Left-arm pacer T Natarajan (2-38) defended 13 in a dramatic last over against Odisha after TN had made 165-5 after being inserted in.Natarajan cleaned up Sarbeshwar Mohanty (3) off the second ball in the final over and kept Odisha on the backfoot. The equation soon read 12 from the last 3 balls for Odisha.
Bikash Raut (1 n.o.) hit one towards the covers in the fourth delivery of that over and the ball - retrieved by M Ashwin - clearly touched the ropes but the umpire seemed to have overlooked it and didn’t signal it as a boundary. The drama didn't end there. Odisha required 9 off the final ball and Natarajan delivered a waist-high no-ball. It boiled down to 6 needed off the final ball and Abishek Raut (38 n.o) managed to just hit a boundary over third-man region which wasn't enough.
Odisha remained in the chase thanks to the efforts of Subhranshu Senapati who scored a 47-ball 67. The other contributions for Odisha came from Abishek Raut and Govinda Poddar (29).
"This (performance) is a wake-up call for us. I thought we were 10-15 runs short while batting first. We bowled many loose balls in the second half and we hope to rectify those errors in the coming matches," TN coach told TOI.
In the opening half, TN rode on the valuable contributions from Baba Aparajith - who scored an unbeaten 28-ball 44 - and M Mohammed (12-ball 27). Opener N Jagadeesan (37) and Sai Sudharsan (28) kept TN's scoreboard ticking in the initial overs of the play.
Brief scores: Tamil Nadu 165-5 in 20 overs (B Aparajith 44 n.o. M Mohammed 27 n.o., N Jagadeesan 37). Odisha 164-6 in 20 overs (Subhranshu Senapati 67, Abishek Raut 38 n.o.; Natarajan 2-38). Tamil Nadu won by 1 run.
Vijay Shankar misses Odisha clash: Skipper Vijay Shankar missed the clash against Odisha due to a niggle in his calf. "We are monitoring his situation and should be available for the coming games," said a team source. N Jagadeesan donned the role of skipper in the clash against Odisha.