Kolkata: Bengal are staring at a probable defeat after being shot out for 207 in their first innings against Vidarbha on Saturday in Kalyani.
Skipper Manoj Tiwary, who was unbeaten overnight on 36 could add just 14 more runs as he ended up with 50 runs of just 89 deliveries. Koushik Ghosh was the other batsman who scored 50 as the rest of the batting failed to show any resistance at all. Akshay Wakhare emerged as the most successful bowler for the visitors as he ended up with three wickets for 45 runs.
Having fallen short of Vidarbha’s first innings total by 292 runs, Bengal once again got off to a poor start as Abhimanyu Easwaran (2) failed to make it big for the second time in the match. His opening partner Abhishek Raman (6), also had a poor outing. But Sudip Chatterjee looked determined in his unbeaten 40-run knock and he along with skipper Tiwary (36 n.o) would look to take Bengal to a draw on the last day.
In Alur, it was the Gautam Gambhir show after Karnataka posted a mammoth 649 on the board. The veteran left-hander displayed an example of pure class and solid temperament as he smashed an unbeaten 135 of 237 balls which included 20 fours. A lot would depend on Gambhir if Delhi is to settle for a draw on the final day.
Summarised scores-
Guwahati: Uttar Pradesh 349 & 229/2 (Umang Sharma 131 n.o, Mohammad Saif 38 n.o; Pallavkumar Das 1/21) lead Assam 318 all out (Sibsankar Roy 72, Rishav Das 52; Saurabh Kumar 5/54) by 260 runs.
Agartala: Andhra Pradesh 402 & 51/1 (Prasanth Kumar 29, Srikar Bharat 21 n.o; Rana Dutta 1/10) lead Tripura 315 all out (Manisankar Murasingh 81, Gurinder Singh 81; Bhargav Bhatt 4/93) by 138 runs.
Jamshedpur: Jammu and Kashmir 376 & 246/7 (Parvez Rasool 70, Owais Amin Shah 50; Utkarsh Singh 3/40) lead Jharkhand 292/9 (Nazim Siddiqui 70, Anand Singh 68; Aamir Aziz 4/86) by 330 runs.
Kalyani: Bengal 207 & 86/3 (Sudip Chatterjee 40 n.o, Manoj Tiwary 36 n.o; Lalit Yadav 3/16) trail Vidarbha 499 all out by 206 runs.
Pune: Railways 330/5 (Pratham Singh 73, Shivakant Shukla 62; Chirag Khurana 2/50) trail Maharashtra 481 all out by 151 runs.
Alur: Delhi 277/4 (Gautam Gambhir 135 n.o, Dhruv Shorey 64; Stuart Binny 2/39) trail Karnataka 649 all out by 372 runs.
Rohtak: Haryana 223 & 179/5 (Shivam Chauhan 65, Rohit Parmod Sharma 25 n.o; Aniket Choudhary 2/30) lead Rajasthan 150 all out (Tajinder Singh 38, Deepak Chahar 27; Ajit Chahal 3/42) by 252 runs.
Rajkot: Gujarat 304/4 (Priyank Panchal 145, Rujul Bhatt 75; Jaydev Unadkat 2/58) trail Saurashtra 570 all out by 266 runs.
Cuttack: Odisha 286/4 (Natraj Behera 91, Sandeep Pattnaik 66; Washington Sundar 2/48) trail Tamil Nadu 530/8 by 244 runs.
Mumbai: 171 & 102/4 (Prithvi Shaw 56, Ajinkya Rahane 28 n.o; Karthik Kakade 1/2) trail Baroda 575/9 (Swapnil Singh 168, Aditya Waghmode 138; Shardul Thakur 3/95) by 302 runs.
Delhi: Services 263 & 108/3 (Ravi Chauhan 41 n.o, Narendra Kumar Singh 26; Darshan Wagha Misal 2/26) lead Goa 270 all out by 101 runs.