Mumbai in charge vs Bengal

Kolkata: The sun shone brightly over Eden Gardens here on Saturday, but a pall of gloom descended over the Bengal camp as they could not bat out an entire day and were bowled out for 199, a good 213 runs short of Mumbai’s first-innings score of 412 on Day II of the Elite Group ‘B’ RanjiTrophy match.The hosts’ only chance of staging a comeback was to pick up Mumbai’s remaining four wickets in quick time. They began in earnest too, getting three wickets for 26 runs on Saturday morning. But a 65-run last-wicket stand between Royston Dias and Dhawal Kulkarni took the match away from Bengal. Left-handed Dias threw his bat at almost everything. Bengal skipper Manoj Tiwary was forced to take the second new ball, but that only accelerated the run flow before Suraj Jaiswal had Dhawal Kulkarni, who played a silent second fiddle to Dias, caught behind. The Bengal pacer continued his good show ending with six for 124 after picking up eight wickets in the last match against Assam.But Mumbai did not allow Bengal batters to settle down and took the upper hand by reducing them to 17 for three in nine overs of play before lunch. It was Mohit Avasthi, who drew first blood by having opener Sourav Paul caught by Hardik Tamor at third slip and then dislodged Sudip Gharami’s bails. To make matters worse, opener Shreyansh Ghosh meaninglessly got run out. It was left to Tiwary and Anushtup Majumder to bring Bengal out of the wood. Both batters settled down to find some useful boundaries with Tiwary greeting Dias with three fours in his opening over. Majumder too rose to the occasion hitting Avasthi for three fours on the bowlers’ return with change of ends.But Mumbai bowlers showed where their Bengal counterparts went wrong. All the bowlers made the batters play throughout the day. A special mention should be made about Kulkarni, who might not have been among big wickets, but was able to create pressure on one end by bowling a nagging line. Unlike Bengal, the Mumbai bowling was backed by some superb fielding.Tiwary departed before the tea break for 36 and from 126 for five, Bengal fizzled out losing the remaining five wickets in the last session of play. Like always, Majumder once again stood tall to complete his 16th first-class ton in 127 balls with the help of 12 boundaries and three sixes. SCOREBOARDMumbai (1st inngs; o/n 330/6): T Kotian b S Jaiswal 67, A Ankolekar c APorel b M Kaif 46, M Avasthi b S Jaiswal 0, D Kulkarni c A Porel b S Jaiswal 14,R Dias not out 46Extras (b 5, lb 9, w 1): 15Total (All out, 94.3 ovs): 412FoW: 1-50, 2-58, 3-87, 4-87, 5-231, 6-231, 7-345, 8-346, 9-347Bowling: S Jaiswal 32.3-9-124-6, I Porel 21-3-91-1, A Mishra 14-1-64-1, M Kaif 21-6-67-2, M Tiwary 2-0-17-0, K Lal 4-0-35-0Bengal (1st inngs): S Paul c H Tamore b M Avasthi 0, S Ghosh run out 5, S Gharami b M Avasthi 6, A Majumdar not out 108, M Tiwary c P Shaw b S Dube 36, A Porel c S Shedge b D Kulkarni 13, K Lal c (sub) b R Dias 14, S Jaiswal c (sub)b R Dias 4, M Kaif b S Dube 8, I Porel lbw M Avasthi 1, A Mishra c S Shedge b T Kotian 0; Extras (b 4): 4Total (All out, 56 ovs): 199FoW: 1-3, 2-11, 3-11, 4-89, 5-124, 6-150, 7-154, 8-179, 9-198Bowling: D Kulkarni 13-4-28-1, M Avasthi 15-1-63-3, R Dias 13-1-58-2, S Dube12-5-38-2, T Kotian 2-0-5-1, A Ankolekar 1-0-3-0.
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