Ranji Trophy: Bengal Tighten Grip Over Odisha

Cuttack: Bengal tightened their grip over Odisha as they staged a strong comeback against Odisha on the second day of the five-day Ranji Trophy quarterfinal at DRIEMS Ground here on Friday.

Resuming their overnight first innings score at 308 for 6, Bengal were all out for 332 after losing the four wickets in quick succession.

Shahbaz who had remained not out at 82, could not push his score as he fell to Suryakant Pradhan while Anustup Mazumdar managed to add 21 runs before getting out at 157. The two tail-enders Mukesh Kumar and Ishan Porel were also dismissed for 1 and zero respectively.

For Odisha, Basant Mohanty claimed four wickets while Suryakant Pradhan and Preet K Singh Chouhan claimed three and two wickets respectively.

In reply, Odisha lost the wicket of Anurag Sarangi for only 5 runs. However, Shantanu Mishra and Debashis Samantray put up a century stand before the latter fell to Nilkantha Das for 62 with the score at 135 for 2.

The host lost two quick wickets of Shantanu Mishra (62) and Govind Poddar (11) as the duo failed to hang on.

At close, Debabrata Pradhan and Biplab Samantaray were at the crease with the score at 151 for 4.

For Bengal, Nilkantha Das bagged two wickets while Ishan Porel and Shahbaz claimed one wicket each.

With Biplab being the last recognized batsman, Odisha have an uphill task of surpassing the first inning score of Bengal as they are trailing by 181 runs.