East Bengal players after beating Tollygunge Agragami in the P. Sen Trophy final at Eden Gardens on Sunday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh

Calcutta: East Bengal, after lifting the National League title in football, completed a triple crown in local cricket on Sunday when they clinched the P. Sen Trophy, beating defending champions Tollygunge Agragami by two wickets in the final at Eden Gardens.

The match was disrupted for an hour following the morning downpour and reduced to a 45-over affair. In reply to Tollygunge’s 203 in 45 overs, the eventual winners achieved the target with three balls to spare.

Tollygunge, electing to bat, were in for early trouble. They lost Sounak Das, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala and Sanjiv Goel with only ten runs on the board. A 68-run fourth wicket stand between Deep Dasgupta and Charanjit Singh steadied things somewhat but the lower middle-order crumbled and they were reduced to 93 for seven.

It was the pair of Alokendu Lahiri (53) and Murtaza Lodhgar (53), which took Tollygunge to a respectable total. The eighth wicket partnership was worth 108 runs. Ranadeb Bose and Shib Sagar Singh capped a consistent season with two wickets each.

East Bengal, however, were not off to a good start but finally scampered home when Abhijit Ganguly conceded four overthrows in the penultimate over. Subhamoy Das, Ritam Kundu and Laxmi Ratan Shukla all scored 48.

East Bengal openers Saikat Mukherjee and Nikhil Haldipur were dismissed cheaply and the winners, at one stage, were 41 for three. They recovered somewhat after the early slump but things never looked very convincing for them.

The match took a dramatic turn when East Bengal lost their eighth wicket, Dharmendra Singh. They needed 12 runs off 14 balls with two wickets in hand before Arindam Das and Ranadeb guided the team home.

East Bengal had won the J.C. Mukherjee Trophy and CAB senior knockout titles earlier. Tollygunge had claimed the CAB League and A.N. Ghosh titles.

Brief scores

Tollygunge Agragami 203/8 in 45 ovs (Alokendu Lahiri 53, Murtaza Lodhgar 53 n.o., Deep Dasgupta 34; Ranadeb Bose 2/33, Shib Sagar Singh 2/33). East Bengal 204/8 in 44.3 ovs (Subhamoy Das 48, Ritam Kundu 48, Laxmi Ratan Shukla 48; Nayan Sur 2/34). East Bengal won by 2 wkts.