Kolkata: Bengal lost one crucial point in their opening match against Services as the match ended in a draw on Monday despite the Manoj Tiwary led side being in a strong position.
Bengal resumed the day at 77/0 and this good opening stand between Abhishek Raman (40) and Abhimanyu Easwaran (39) promised a lot more before some quick wickets dented their progress as in no time, they were reduced to 117/3. Tiwary remained unbeaten on 22 while right-arm medium pacer Diwesh Pathania, after dismissing Raman, got the better of Wriddhiman Saha and Ashoke Dinda, who had scored a quickfire 50 in the first innings.
Thus, they ended their innings at 161/5, posting a 354-run target for Services to get to a win and everything went according to plan.
Opener and skipper Nakul Verma (15) was the first one to bite the dust as Mohammad Shami disturbed the woodwork behind the batsman. Left-arm medium pacer Kanishk Seth was the best bowler with two wickets to his name conceding just 18 runs while Anustup Majumdar’s leg-break bowling earned him two crucial wickets to help Bengal dictate terms in the match.
Vikas Hathwala (64) and Navneet Singh (49) were the only batsmen in the team to have shown resistance as the rest of the team failed to put up a good show. Ashoke Dinda and Amir Gani got a wicket apiece as Services, at 212/7 settled for a draw. Bengal, courtesy their lead which they took in the first innings were awarded three points while Services got just one.
Brief scores-
Bengal 552/9 decl. and 161/5 (Abhishek Raman 40, Abhimanyu Easwaran 39; Diwesh Pathania 3/71) drew against Services 359 all out and 212/7 (Vikas Hathwala 64, Navneet Singh 49; Kanishk Seth 2/18)
Other matches-
Chennai– Tamil Nadu 176 and 350/6 decl. (Baba Aparijith 99 n.o, Abhinav Mukund 95; Yarra Prithviraj 3/61) drew against Andhra Pradesh 309 all out and 198/7 (Srikar Bharat 64, Ricky Bhui 40; Krishnamoorthy Vignesh 3/34)
Porvorim– Chattisgarh 458 all out drew against Goa 282 and 170/7 (Sumiran Amonkar 53, Saurabh Bandekar 25; Sumit Ruikar 5/29)
Delhi– Delhi 435 all out and 49/2 (Unmukt Chand 25, Anuj Rawat 13; Krishna Das 2/22) drew against Assam 258 all out and 255 all out (Sibsankar Roy 87, Wasiqur Rahman 63; Manan Sharma 3/58)
Bhubaneswar– Tripura 194/8 decl. (Udiyan Bose 104, Yashpal Singh 20; Dhiraj Singh 5/55) drew against Odisha 18/1 (Govinda Poddar 8 n.o, Natraj Behera 6 n.o; Manisankar Murasingh 1/4)
Indore– Madhya Pradesh 551/8 decl. and 73/2 (Harpreet Singh 44, Rajat Patidar 23; Atit Sheth 2/19) beat Baroda 302 all out and 318 all out (Yusuf Pathan 136 n.o, Atit Sheth 109; Ishwar Pandey 5/40) by eight wickets.
Dharamsala– Punjab 601 all out drew against Himachal Pradesh 729/8 decl. and 145/6 (Paras Dogra 45, Akash Vashisht 23; Manpreet Gony 2/20)
Jaipur– Jammu and Kashmir 436/8 decl. drew against Rajasthan 330 and 246/4 (Rajesh Bishnoi 101 n.o, Mahipal Lomror 65 n.o; Rohit Sharma 2/28)
Hyderabad– Hyderabad vs Maharashtra (match abandoned without a ball being bowled)
Lucknow– Railways 182 and 161 (Arindam Ghosh 57, Vidhyadhar Kamat 30; Ankit Rajpoot 4/34) beat Uttar Pradesh 250 and 72 all out (Suresh Raina 29, Rinku Singh 23; Avinash Yadav 4/26) by 21 runs.
Thiruvananthapuram– Kerala 259 and 34/1 (Arun Karthik 27 n.o, Rohan Prem 2 n.o; Samar Quadri 1/15) beat Jharkhand 202 and 89 all out (Saurabh Tiwary 26, Virat Singh 16; Jalaj Saxena 5/27) by 9 wickets
Rohtak-Saurashtra 278 beat Haryana 107 and 140 (Chaitanya Bishnoi 56, Deepak Punia 34; Jaydev Unadkat 3/55) by an innings and 31 runs