Kolkata: Vidarbha, who dominated their Group D clash against Bengal right from the very beginning emerged victorious as they outplayed the hosts convincingly by a 10 wickets to move to the top of their group with 21 points on Sunday.
The day began with southpaw Sudip Chatterjee and skipper Manoj Tiwary fighting it out for Bengal. But Tiwary, who scored a valiant fifty in the first innings could add just seven more runs to his overnight total as he was dismissed by Lalit Yadav.
But then an inspiring 148-run partnership between Chatterjee and wicket-keeper batsman Wriddhiman Saha (91) lifted Bengal and just when it looked that the hosts had pulled out the impossible feat of taking the game to a probable draw, Saha’s untimely run-out meant that the inevitable batting collapse would soon occur, and it did.
From being 241/5, they were bundled out for 306 runs as they ended up posting a mere 14 runs for Vidarbha to win the match. Lalit Yadav was the wrecker-in-chief as he scalped four wickets conceding 54 runs.
Chatterjee, who didn’t have a good run with the willow of late smashed a resilient 82 but that wasn’t enough for Bengal to avoid a loss.
The Vidarbha openers came out confident and Sanjay Ramaswamy, who had struck a wonderful 182 in the first innings whacked four fours to finish off the game in style for his team.
Summarised scores-
Kalyani: Vidarbha 499 all out & 16/0 (Sanjay Ramaswamy 16 n.o, Faiz Fazal 2 n.o; Aamir Gani 0/5) beat Bengal 207 all out & 306 all out (Wriddhiman Saha 91 n.o Sudip Chatterjee 82; Lalit Yadav 4/54) by 10 wickets.
Rohtak: Rajasthan 150 all out & 59/7 (Mahipal Lomror 20 n.o, Ashok Menaria 13; Ashish Hooda 3/8) drew against Haryana 223 & 179/5
Delhi: Goa 270 all out & 128/4 (SK Kamat 57 n.o, Sumiran Amonkar 22; Diwesh Pathania 3/37) drew against Services 263 & 190 all out (Ravi Chauhan 55, Nakul Verma 30; Darshan Wagha Misal 7/68)
Cuttack: Odisha 533/9 (Rajesh Dhupar 97, Natraj Behera 91; Washington Sundar 4/95) drew against Tamil Nadu 530/8.
Mumbai: Mumbai 171 all out & 260/7 (Siddhesh Lad 71 n.o, Ajinkya Rahane 45; Kartik Kakade 2/50) drew against Baroda 575/9
Dharamsala: Himachal Pradesh 175 all out & 167 all out (Nikhil Gangta 41, Paras Dogra 35; Shahnawaz Hussain 6/53) lost to Chattisgarh 456 all out.
Guwahati: Assam 318 & 148/4 (Gokul Sharma 62, Sibsankar Roy 62; Saurabh Kumar 3/52) drew against 349 & 357/6 (Umang Sharma 148, Mohammad Saif 77; Abu Nechim 2/58)
Rajkot: Saurashtra 570 & 98/1 (Robin Uthappa 64 n.o, Sheldon Jackson 21; Siddharth Desai 1/40) drew against Gujarat 413 all out (Priyank Panchal 145, Rujul Bhatt 107; Jaydev Unadkat 4/83)
Alur: Karnataka 649 all out & 235/3 (KL Rahul 92, Ravikumar Samarth 47; Navdeep Saini 1/28) drew against Delhi 301 all out (Gautam Gambhir 144, Dhruv Shorey 64; Abhimanyu Mithun 5/ 70)
Pune: Railways 381 all out and 54/1 (Saurabh Wasakar 23 n.o, Nitin Bhille 14; Chirag Khurana 1/16) drew against Maharashtra 481 all out & 186/6 (Naushad Shaikh 40, Rahul Tripathi 30: Karan Thakur 3/43).
Agartala: Tripura 315 all out & 272/5 (Smit Patel 107, Udiyan Bose 53; Bhargav Bhatt 2/83) drew against Andhra Pradesh 402 all out and 234/4 (Srikar Bharat 50, Ashwin Hebbar 44; Rana Dutta 3/43)