Rohan Gavaskar waged solitary battle with 66

Hyderabad: Bengal were 172 for seven in reply to Hyderabad’s first innings score of 309 at close of Day Two in their Group B Ranji Trophy Super League encounter at the Visaka International Cricket Stadium, Uppal here Wednesday.

Resuming at 258 for six, Hyderabad folded up for 309 as Ranadeb Bose ripped through the tail claiming three wickets. Overnight batsman Arjun Yadav after adding six runs to his previous day’s score of 79, was dismissed by Saurav Sarkar, playing his second match, early in the day. Speedster P.K. Reddy hit a breezy unbeaten 32 off 56 balls with four fours to see the team cross the 300-mark.

In reply, Bengal started on a shaky note with Hyderabad youngsters Pragnyan Ojha and Absolem striking early, dismissing the first three batsmen for just 44 runs.

Rohan Gavaskar and Manoj Tewari then stabilised the innings, adding 44 runs for the fourth wicket before the latter fell to a slower delivery from Pranit Arjun. Tewari made 31, from 47 balls with five hits to the fence.

Gavaskar and skipper Deep Dasgupta tried to make some amends but the former edged a rising delivery off Absolem into the hands of wicket keeper Ibrahim Khaleel after a well made 66 which includes ten hits to the fence.

Incidentally, five of the seven dismissals were in the form of leg before wickets, which made the Bengal camp “unhappy”. Out of the five lbws, three were of Bengal’s top three batsmen — Arindam Chowdhury, Amitava Chakraborty and Avishek Jhunjhunwala. “It’s all part of the game but not five out of six… there has to be something,” was what the reaction from the visitors’ camp.

Ashok Dinda on 26 and and Sarkar on 1 were at crease at stumps for Bengal, who have a deficit of 137 runs with three wickets in hand.