Kolkata: Cheteshwar Pujara scored a magnificent 182 to help Saurashtra pile a mammoth 570 runs in the first innings against Gujarat on Day 2 in Rajkot on Friday.
The right-hander played a patient 313-run knock that included 24 hits to the fence and along with wicket-keeper batsman Snell Patel’s resilient 156 on the first day, Saurashtra took themselves to a comfortable position with 570 runs on the board. Pujara’s knock was also a very timely one as this would undoubtedly boost his confidence ahead of India’s home assignment against Sri Lanka beginning with a three-match Test series, the first of which begins in Kolkata on November 16.
Siddharth Desai was the best bowler for the defending champions as he scalped four wickets conceding 154 runs.
In Kalyani, Vidarbha continued with their dominance over Bengal as they ended their innings with 499 runs on the board. Sanjay Ramaswamy, who was involved in a huge partnership with skipper Faiz Fazal on the first day continued with the good work as he scored 182 of 361 deliveries which included 21 fours. Aditya Sarwate showed some resistance with a well-compiled 89 runs.
Ishan Porel, who was selected for the U-19 Challenger Trophy put up a good performance with the ball for the hosts as he scalped four wickets giving away 139 runs. Veteran paceman Ashok Dinda took three wickets.
Bengal in reply, found themselves to be in trouble as they lost Abhimanyu Easwaran in the very first over itself. They were handed another blow when the left-handed Sudip Chatterjee departed in the 11th over to Lalit Yadav. But that wasn’t the end as Bengal also had in-form Abhishek Raman back in the hut when the southpaw was caught by Akshay Wakhare of his own bowling for just
27 to leave Bengal reeling at 89/3. Home team skipper Manoj Tiwary remained unbeaten on 36 with Koushik Ghosh 1 at the crease.
Summarised scores–
Kalyani: Bengal 89/3 (Manoj Tiwary 36 n.o, Abhishek Raman 27; Lalit Yadav 2/13) trail Vidarbha 499 all out (Sanjay Ramaswamy 182, Faiz Fazal 182; Ishan Porel 4/139) by 410 runs.
Rajkot: Gujarat 45/0 (Parthiv Patel 29 n.o, Priyank Panchal 12 n.o; Ravindra Jadeja 0/1) trail Saurashtra 570 all out (Cheteshwar Pujara 182, Snell Patel 156; Siddharth Desai 4/154) by 525 runs.
Delhi: Goa 150/6 (SK Kamat 50, Sunil Desai 37; Sachidanand Pandey 3/23) trail Services 263 all out (Vikas Yadav 84, Nakul Verma 64; Heramb Parab 3/37) by 113 runs
Dharamsala: Chattisgarh 389/6 (Rishabh Tiwari 131, Amandeep Khare 78; Pankaj Jaiswal 2/69) lead Himachal Pradesh 175 all out (Rishi Dhawan 35, Pankaj Jaiswal 25; Pankaj Rao 3/52) by 214 runs.
Baroda: 376/4 (Aditya Waghmode 138, Deepak Hooda 75; Royston Dias 1/16) lead Mumbai 171 all out (Aditya Tare 50, Shreyas Iyer 28; Atit Sheth 5/50) by 205 runs.
Guwahati: Assam 279/6 (Sibsankar Roy 72, Rishav Das 52; Saurabh Kumar 4/54) trail Uttar Pradesh 349 all out (Saurabh Kumar 133, Upendra Yadav 127; Rajjakuddin Ahmed 3/103) by 70 runs.
Agartala: Tripura 68/1 (Samrat Singha 33 n.o, Udiyan Bose 16 n.o; Bandaru Ayyappa 1/17) trail Andhra Pradesh 402 all out (Prashanth Kumar 133, Ricky Bhui 74; AK Sarkar 5/64) by 34 runs.
Jamshedpur: Jharkhand 220/5 (Nazim Siddiqui 70, Anand Singh 68; Mohammed Mudhasir 2/38) trail Jammu and Kashmir 376 all out (Puneet Bisht 115, Shubham Khajuria 101; Varun Aaron 4/54) by 156 runs.
Pune: Railways 88/0 (Shivakant Shukla 47 n.o, Saurabh Wasakar 32 n.o; Chirag Khurana 0/4) trail Maharashtra 481 all out (Rohit Motwani 189, Ankit Bawne 92; Amit Mishra 4/98) by 393 runs.
Cuttack: Odisha 36/0 (Natraj Behera 17 n.o, Sandeep Pattnaik 15 n.o; Washington Sundar 0/0) trail Tamil Nadu 530/8 decl. (Murali Vijay 140, Baba Aparijith 109 n.o; Suryakant Pradhan 3/75) by 494 runs.
Alur: 20/0 (Gautam Gambhir 20 n.o, Unmukt Chand 8 n.o; Vinay Kumar 0/8) trail Karnataka 649 all out (Mayank Agarwal 176, Stuart Binny 118; Manan Sharma 3/151) by 629 runs.
Rohtak: Rajasthan 74/7 (Rajesh Bishnoi 13, Mahipal Lomror 12; Amit Mishra 2/19) trail Haryana 223 all out (Harshal Patel 83; Rajat Paliwal 32; Aniket Choudhary 3/37) by 149 runs.