Cuttack: A fine unbeaten century by Anustup Mazumdar and a half-century by Shahbaz rescued Bengal from collapse against Odisha on the opening day of the five-day Ranji Trophy quarterfinal at DRIEMS Ground here on Thursday.
At the draw of stumps, Bengal were 308 for 6 with Anustup and Shahbaz remaining not out at 136 and 82 respectively.
Put into bat, Bengal lost five wickets at regular intervals. While the two openers, Koushik Ghosh (9) and Captain AR Easwaran (7) fell cheaply, Abhishek Kumar Raman (1) and Manoj Tiwari (4) and Arnab Nandi (24) could not stay for long.
However, Anustup and wicketkeeper Shreevats Goswami put up a resolute stand of 95 runs before the latter falling to debutant pacer, Preet K Singh Chouhan for 34.
With the score 141 for 6, Shahbaz with his partner put up an unbeaten 159-run partnership and took the score to 308 at close.
For Odisha, Suryakant Pradhan Preet K Singh Chouhan bagged two wickets each while Basant Mohanty and Debabrata Pradhan claimed one wicket each.
