Cuttack: Sourav Gouda and Shubham Satrujit produced a nail-biting finish to the very first match of Odisha Pro T20 League 2025 as Cuttack Panthers clinched a win by 3 wickets at the Barabati Stadium. Chasing a target of 189 on the board, Swastik Samal and Panakala Sasanka opened the innings for Cuttack Panthers.
The duo added 74 runs for the first wicket before Swastik was dismissed for 52 in 32 balls. Biplab Samantaray scored 13 in 11 balls. Panakala managed to add 46 in 40 balls. Towards the end, Sourav Gouda and Subham Satrujit added 50 runs for the 6th wicket. Sourav scored 34 in just 11 balls. Subham remained unbeaten till the end and added 34* runs in 19 balls, helping his team win the match. For Bhubaneswar Tigers, Badal Biswal took 2/26 in 4 overs. Sambit Beja(1/27), Jayant Behera(1/30), Suryakant Pradhan(1/47) and Debabrata Pradhan(1/57) took one wicket each in the innings. At the start of the game, after winning the toss, Cuttack Panthers elected to bowl first to kick off the Odisha Pro T20 League. For Bhubaneswar Tigers, Prayan Prantik Samal and Gourav Choudhury opened the innings. Interestingly, Vageesh Sharma took two wickets in the very first over of the match, along with bowling a maiden.
Prayan and Maroju Prasanth were dismissed before their accounts even started. After the loss of the second wicket, Gourav Choudhury was joined by Rajesh Dhupar in the middle. The duo added 130 runs for the third wicket before Gourav was dismissed for 78 in 43 balls. Bikram Samal added 34 in just 16 balls. Rajesh Dhupar played a vital knock of 65 in 47 balls. They added 189/5 in 20 overs. For Cuttack Panthers, Vageesh Sharma took 2/25 in his 4 overs. Soubhagya Rout picked 2/31 in 3 overs. Biplab Samatray grabbed 1/37 in his 4 overs. Swastik Samal, Captain of Cuttack Panther,s said, “It was a great victory.
A perfect first and an inaugural match. We were under too much pressure at a point in time, but the way Sourav Gouda batted, it was incredible, along with the way we chased down 70 runs in the last five overs.”
