Kolkata: Ashok Dinda produced a spell of quality pace bowling to earn Bengal a good lead but Himachal Pradesh staged a strong fightback to end the third day’s play, trailing by just six runs in a Group D encounter at the Eden Gardens on Friday.
After Bengal ended up with a mammoth 419 in their first innings, it was Dinda who turned up the heat with a brilliant five-wicket haul (5/61) to dismiss the visitors for just 206 runs, thus gaining a huge 213-run lead. He was ably supported by fellow paceman Mohammad Shami, who scalped three wickets conceding 94 runs. Mukesh Kumar took two wickets.
But Himachal Pradesh weren’t the ones to give up easily as they, led by Prashant Chopra (81) fought back hard to end the third day’s play, trailing by just six runs. Opener Priyanshu Khanduri is unbeaten on 52 while Nikhil Gangta is his partner at the other end with 43 runs. Bengal, still has the upper hand in the contest.
Mayank Agarwal, smashed his way to an unbeaten triple hundred (304 n.o) in the Karnataka vs Maharashtra match held in Pune, as he helped the CM Gautam led side to a huge total of 628/5 in their first innings. Opener Ravikumar Samarth (129) and Karun Nair (116) made classy hundreds to add to the frustration of the opposition bowlers.
Karnataka then returned with the ball to leave the hosts at 135/4 at the end of day’s play. Abhimanyu Mithun led the way with two wickets while Rituraj Gaikwad (61 n.o) and Rahul Tripathi (33 n.o) would look to help Maharashtra bounce back into the game.
Brief scores-
Pune: Karnataka 628/5 (Mayank Agarwal 304 n.o, Ravikumar Samarth 129; Chirag Khurana 3/147) lead Maharashtra 245 and 135/4 (Rituraj Gaikwad 61 n.o, Rahul Tripathi 33 n.o; Abhimanyu Mithun 2/32) by 248 runs.
Kolkata: Himachal Pradesh 206 and 207/2 (Sumeet Verma 64, Priyanshu Khanduri 52; Ashok Dinda 5/61) trail Bengal 419 by 6 runs.
Other matches-
Nagpur: Vidarbha 385 and 111/2 (Faiz Fazal 46, Sanjay Ramaswamy 35 n.o; Vikas Yadav 1/13) lead Services 317 (Nakul Verma 71, G Rahul Singh 63; Akshay Wakhare 5/87) by 179 runs.
Bhubaneswar: Odisha 145 and 93/4 (Govinda Poddar 48 n.o, Natraj Behera 21; Akash Parkar 2/9) need 320 runs to win vs Mumbai 289 and 268/9 (Siddhesh Lad 117, Prithvi Shaw 46; Suryakant Pradhan 3/106)
Vizianagaram: Madhya Pradesh 321 and 67/5 (Ankit Sharma 25, Devendra Bundela 23; Bandaru Ayyappa 3/26) lead Andhra Pradesh 376 (Hanuma Vihari 77, Ashwin Hebbar 77; Mihir Hirwani 5/82) by 12 runs.
Rajkot: Jharkhand 270 and 139/1 (Nazim Siddiqui 83, Sumit Kumar 46; Vandit Jivrajani 1/15) trail Saurashtra 553/9 by 144 runs.
Raipur: Chattisgarh 238 and 171/4 (Ashutosh Singh 81, Abhimanyu Chauhan 36; Barinder Sran 2/31) trail Punjab 653/9 (Anmolpreet Singh 267, Gurkeerat Singh 111; Shourabh Khairwar 3/107) by 244 runs.
Vadodara: Tripura 327/4 (Smit Patel 123, Yashpal Singh 90; Sagar Mangalorkar 2/56) trail Baroda 521 (Vishnu Solanki 116, Atit Sheth 95; Ajoy Sarkar 3/88) by 194 runs.
Valsad: Haryana 157 and 94/7 (Sanjay Pahal 25, Rajat Paliwal 17; Siddharth Desai 4/38) need 267 runs to win against Gujarat 236 and 281/9 (Priyank Panchal 67, Bhargav Merai 66; Deepak Hooda 4/79).
Thiruvananthapuram: Jammu and Kashmir 173 and 56/7 (Parvez Rasool 17, Pranav Gupta 11; MD Nidheesh 2/7) need 182 runs to win against Kerala 219 and 191 (Rohan Prem 58, Arun Karthik 36; Parvez Rasool 5/70).
Delhi: Uttar Pradesh 291 and 224/7 (Akshdeep Nath 110 n.o, Rinku Singh 64; Ishant Sharma 3/38) lead Delhi 269 (Dhruv Shorey 98 n.o, Gautam Gambhir 86, Saurabh Kumar 4/87) by 246 runs
Delhi: Railways 246 and 13/0 (Shivakant Shukla 6 n.o, Saurabh Wakaskar 6 n.o; Ravi Kiran 0/1) trail Hyderabad 474/9 (Ambati Rayudu 112, Bavanaka Sandeep 82; Manish Rao 3/76) by 215 runs.