Defeat was certain. The question was how long tail enders of Tripura under-16 team can hang on and delay the inevitable.
They didn’t last long as the Odisha bowlers took only 35 minutes to bundle out Tripura on Friday and hand over the Tripura team it’s second successive innings defeat in the ongoing U-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy in Assam.
In today’s 35 minutes of play, Tripura lost their last two wickets after adding 14 runs in 8 overs to its yesterday’s score of 68.
It was Tripura’s second successive innings drubbing in the tournament. This time Tripura lost by an innings and 60 runs.
Playing against Tripura in the U-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy cricket, Odisha scored 224 runs in the first innings in response to Tripura’s 82 runs. Trailing by 142 runs, Tripura managed to score only 82 runs in the second innings as well.
Tripura’s innings would have ended on the second day if the play had not been stopped for an hour due to rain.
On Friday morning, play started almost an hour and a half after the scheduled time due to rain. Starting with 68 runs for 8 wickets, Tripura managed to score a total of 82 runs.
Riad Hussain remained unbeaten on 25 runs off 59 balls, hitting three boundaries. He was the only player from who tried to wield his to score some runs. Remaining players disgracefully surrendered to Odisha bowlers.
Odisha’s Jogeswar Bag took five wickets for 18 runs. Odisha won the match by an innings and got 7 points including bonus points.
Tripura failed to get a single point from the two matches. Tripura will play their third match against Goa from December 11-13. The match will be played in Guwahati.
After losing two consecutive matches by an innings, the Tripura cricketers are mentally struggling for confidence. It remains to be seen how much fight they can put up against Goa in that situation.
