Saurashtra maintains their grip on Ranji Trophy final; Bengal fight

 
Saurashtra is still having the upper hand in the Ranji Trophy final as they continue to maintain their grip on the title on Day.

This is coming on the heel of a fightback from Bengal veteran Manoj Tiwary and Sudip Chatterjee on a bad pitch on Wednesday.

Chatterjee (47 not out off 145) and Tiwary (35 off 116) gritted out 89-run partnership off 226 balls with Bengal at 35 for two at lunch.

With the slow and bad pitch batting is becoming tougher each Day with the ball very low from Day one. This has made it be a daunting task for Bengal to get past Saurashtra’s first innings total of 425.

At the close of the play, the host reached 134 for three in 65 overs. They are currently trailing Saurashtra by 291.

With Chatterjee and Wriddhiman Saha (4 off 43) in the middle, Saurashtra The Day at 384 for eight, and batted for an hour and 10 minutes in the morning to add 41 valuable runs. The last wicket partnership of Jaydev Unadkat and Dharemendrasinh Jadeja produced 38 runs.

It could be recalled that Pujara and Arpit Vasavada batted together for five hours on Day two, putting Saurashtra in a strong position.

Bengal, which his aiming for its first Ranji title since the 1989-90 season will have to come up with a strategy to stay in the game, and it will have to be something special.

Saurashtra, on the other hand, is aiming for their maiden title.

On a bad surface, the home team’s bowlers will have to continue from where they stopped yesterday by aiming for the stumps with the hope that the pitch will do the rest.

The removal of Tiwary by Chirag Jani clearly showed how tough it was to bat on the uneven surface. He was trapped in front of the stumps with a ball that came back in sharply at a low height, leaving him with nothing much to do.

Bengal had a good game in the afternoon session. They did not lose a wicket and gathered 59 runs after they lost their openers Sudip Kumar Gharami (26) and Abhimanyu Easwaran (9), in the morning.

During the morning session,  Akash Deep took his fourth wicket by removing Jani, but Saurashtra added 38 runs for the 10th wicket to get past 400.

Written by: Oladipupo Mojeed