Ranji Trophy: Mumbai vs Bengal, Day 4
First Published : 04 Dec 2012, 19:14
Last Modified : 04 Dec 2012, 19:14
Mumbai, Dec 4: An entertaining game between Mumbai and Bengal ended in a draw on final day of the fifth round of Ranji Trophy 2012-13 season at the Brabourne Stadium here. After the batsmen set the stage to give Mumbai a chance for victory, Abhishek Nayar brought the game alive with breakthroughs at crucial junctures on the fourth day and finished with a six-wicket haul. However, despite a shaky innings, the Bengal batsmen managed to stretch their stay at the crease and keep wickets intact to gain a point, while the home team received three on the basis of their first innings lead.
Chasing 391, Bengal had resumed their innings on 47 without loss and were 198 for seven at the end of the match.
Earlier, although the Mumbai bowlers kept pegging at them relentlessly, the Bengal openers played watchfully and registered their half-centuries in the morning session. After the regular bowlers were unable to give Mumbai a breakthrough, Rohit Sharma handed the ball to Abhishek Nayar, who responded with a wicket to end the opening stand for 116. A brilliant catch by Aditya Tare diving to his left after Rohan Banerjee nudged at the ball, saw the opener walk back for 59. Arindam Das, continuing from where he had left off in the first innings, went past his fifty before lunch and was not out on 52 when the session ended.
After lunch Nayar dealt a double blow striking twice in successive overs to claim Writam Porel and Arindam. In the second over after lunch, Porel edged the ball to the wicketkeeper; Arindam too was caught by Tare in the medium pacer’s next over. The Bengal opener edged the ball to the ‘keeper to return to the dressing room for 54.
With two new batsmen, Manoj Tiwary and Wriddhiman Saha, at the crease working towards rebuilding the innings, the Mumbai bowlers kept hitting the deck hard in pursuit of wickets. And a few years later, Nayar sent the Bengal captain’s off-stump cartwheeling to claim his fourth scalp. In his next over the bowler missed an opportunity to complete his fiver when Kshemal Waingankar dropped Saha at mid-on. However, Nayar had kept the home team in the hunt for a victory with a vital first spell of 12-6-12-4.
Taking the half-chances and reprieves in their stride, the Mumbai bowlers kept coming hard at the Bengal batsmen. Midway through the second session it was Ankeet Chavan’s turn to be rewarded for persistently troubling the batsmen. The left-arm spinner had Subhomoy Das caught at mid-on to leave the visitors on 161 for five. Abhishek Jhunjhunwala then joined Saha in the middle and the duo took Bengal to 175 for five at tea.
Saha along with Jhunjhunwala then worked towards extending the Bengal innings. But the partnership was ended by Nayar. Changing ends the medium-pacer trapped Jhunjhunwala leg-before to end the 29-run, 156-ball stand; and on the last ball of the same over he castled Laxmi Ratan Shukla for a duck to bring Mumbai back in the game with an impressive second spell of 6-5-1-2. Meanwhile, Saha who had survived a few chances ensured that Bengal weren’t bowled out. Veer Pratap Singh held the other end together.
Result: Match drawn – Mumbai 3 points, Bengal 1 point
Brief scores:
At the end of Day 4: Bengal 2nd innings 198/7 in 106 overs (R Banerjee 59, A Das 54, W Saha 38*, A Nayar 6/13)
At the end of Day 3: Mumbai 2nd innings 294/5 in 74.4 overs (H Shah 118, A Nayar 73*, Shami Ahmed 2/39); Bengal 2nd innings 47/0 in 16 overs (R Banerjee 23*, A Das 19*)
At the end of Day 2: Mumbai 1st innings 297 all out in 105.1 overs (D Kulkarni 37, LR Shukla 5/38, I Saxena 4/105); Bengal 1st innings 201 all out in 65.4 overs (Arindam Das 98*, A Chavan 4/ 61, K Waingankar 2/16); Mumbai 2nd innings 6/0 in 3 overs
At the end of Day 1: Mumbai 1st innings 262/7 in 90 overs (W Jaffer 80, A Nayar 62, L R Shukla 4/35)
