The Shamanur Davangere Diamonds opener became only the second player, after Manish Pandey last year, to touch three-figures in the Karnataka Premier League, setting the base for a convincing 20-run win for Sunil Joshi’s men – their third of the competition -- against a battling Belagavi Panthers.
It wasn’t entirely an Agarwal show all the way, but no one set the imagination afire like the powerful right-hander, driving down the ground with felicity both in the air and along the carpet.
Wondrous knock
His wondrous 62-ball 100 (11x4, 4x6) was easily the cornerstone around which the Diamonds, choosing to bat, erected a gargantuan 191 for four, their cause further boosted by V Bharath Kumar’s sensational last-over pyrotechnics that yielded 26 runs as the hapless S Dhananjaya was battered around in a sequence that read 4,6,4,0, 6,6.
Unbeaten in three matches, the Panthers made a brave fist of it with skipper J Arun Kumar (57, 34b, 6x4, 2x6) showing that T20 isn’t necessarily only a young man’s game, but to score at 9.5 an over for the duration of a task proved beyond them as they settled for 171 for nine.
No praise can be too high for man of the match Agarwal, who played for India in the under-19 World Cup in New Zealand earlier this year. Powerfully built, his only moments of uncertainty came early on against the pacy Ronit More, but once he got into his stride, he tore the Panthers bowling apart.
Boundaries cascaded off his willow at a frenetic pace as he completely called the shots, seldom putting a foot wrong. A pulled single off More took him to three figures in 61 deliveries, and though he was dismissed next ball, M Nidish, Joshi and Bharath (32 n.o., 7b, 2x4, 4x6) heaped further misery on the Panthers.
Arun and Shyam Ponnappa began in blistering fashion, realising 70 (43b) for the first wicket. Arun and Suraj Sampath added a further 42 (25b), but it was a pace too difficult to maintain. Once Arun fell to the guiles of Prasanna Patil, the intelligent left-arm spinner, the Panthers rapidly went downhill.
Patil took the pace off the ball and bowled quite beautifully, taking three for 27 in his four overs. That was just one run more than Dhananjaya leaked in the final over of the Diamonds innings. How’s that for parsimony in a bat-dominated contest!
SCORE BOARD
SHAMANUR DAVANGERE DIAMONDS: Mayank Agarwal c Uthappa b Dhananjaya 100, CM Gautam c Hoover b Dhananjaya 1, Yere Goud c Sayyed b Vinodh 14, M Nidish st Uthappa b Balachandra 23, V Bharath Kumar (not out) 32, Sunil Joshi (not out) 12. Extras (W-7, NB-2) 9. Total (for 4 wkts, 20 overs) 191.
Fall of wickets: 1-21 (Gautam), 2-90 (Goud), 3-143 (Agarwal), 4-152 (Nidish).
Bowling: S Dhananjaya 4-0-55-2 (w-1, nb-2), Ronit More 4-0-32-0 (w-1), Naveen Balachandra 4-0-36-1 (w-1), Ramling Patil 3-0-29-0 (w-4), Zeeshan Ali Sayyed 1-0-11-0, S Vinodh 2-0-11-1, Stalin Hoover 2-0-17-0.
BELAGAVI PANTHERS: J Arun Kumar c Goud b Patil 57, Shyam Ponnappa c Goud b Patil 25, Suraj Sampath lbw Rajesh 16, Stalin Hoover c Goud b Bharath 11, Vinayak Uthappa c & b Patil 17, Naveen Balakrishna c Rajesh b Bharath 5, S Dhananjaya b Joshi 0, S Vinodh (not out) 13, Zeeshan Ali Sayyed b Rajesh 3, Ronit More (run out) 0, Ramling Patil (not out) 3. Extras (LB-3, W-18) 21. Total (for 9 wkts, 20 overs) 171.
Fall of wickets: 1-70 (Ponnappa), 2-112 (Arun), 3-119 (Sampath), 4-145 (Uthappa), 5-148 (Hoover), 6-152 (Balachandra), 7-157 (Dhananjaya), 8-162 (Sayyed), 9-162 (More).
Bowling: Sunil Joshi 4-0-31-1, BN Bharath 4-0-39-2 (w-3), P Magizhendan 3-0-33-0 (w-14), DC Rajesh 4-0-33-2, Prasanna Patil 4-0-27-3 (w-1), Yere Goud 1-0-5-0.
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