Kolkata: After being dominated by Gujarat on the first day of their Ranji Trophy quarter-final clash, Bengal bounced back with the ball to gain control of the match at the Sawai Man Singh stadium on Friday.
Resuming the day at 261/6, Boddupalli Amit (36) and Aamir Gani (49) stitched a stubborn 52-run stand to help Bengal pile up 354 in their first innings. This was indeed a good comeback by Manoj Tiwary’s side, given the fact that they had been pushed on the backfoot by the defending champions on Day 1.
The Bengal bowlers now, with momentum on their side bowled with fire to rattle the much-fancied batting line-up of the opposition. Veteran pacer Ashoke Dinda (1/23) and 19-year-old Ishan Porel (2/55) who along with Prithvi Shaw was allowed to participate in the Ranji Trophy after being named in India’s U-19 World Cup squad bowled well in tandem and never really let the Gujarat batsmen settle down. Amit, who provided an useful contribution with the bat was the best bowler as he snared three wickets conceding 46 runs.
Barring the 107-run stand between Bhargav Merai (67) and Parthiv Patel (47), none of the other batsmen could make an impact as they were reduced to 180/6 towards the end of the day with Piyush Chawla and Rujul Bhatt batting on 22 and 13 respectively.
With Gujarat still trailing by 174 runs, Bengal would look forward to carry on with the good work they’ve done and strengthen their grip on the game.
Summarised scores-
Jaipur: Gujarat 180/6 ( Bhargav Merai 67, Parthiv Patel 47; Boddupalli Amit 3/46) trail Bengal 354 all out (Abhimanyu Easwaran 129, Anustup Majumdar 94; Ishwar Chaudhary 5/87) by 174 runs.
Surat: Kerala 32/2 ( Jalaj Saxena 13 n.o, Mohammad Azharuddeen 8; Rajneesh Gurbani 1/11) trail Vidarbha 246 all out ( Akshay Wadkar 53, Aditya Sarwate 36; KC Akshay 5/66) by 214 runs.
Nagpur: Karnataka 395/6 (Shreyas Gopal 80 n.o, CM Gautam 79; Shivam Dubey 5/79) lead Mumbai 173 by 222 runs.
Vijayawada: Delhi 180/2 (Dhruv Shorey 78, Kunal Chandela 73 n.o; Ishwar Pandey 1/33) trail Madhya Pradesh 338 all out (Harpreet Singh 107 n.o, Naman Ojha 49; Manan Sharma 4/46) by 158 runs