Bengal in driver’s seat against Jharkhand in Ranji quarters

KOLKATA: Bengal is on course to reaching its third successive Ranji Trophy semi-final appearance after Shahbaz Ahmed produced yet another sparkling all-round show to put it in the driver’s seat on the third day of its quarterfinal match against Jharkhand here on Thursday.

Batting at No. 6, left-hander Ahmed topscored with a gritty 81 off 120 balls (9x4, 2x6) as Bengal posted 328 in its first innings to secure a healthy first innings lead of 155 runs.

At stumps on Day 3, Jharkhand was ahead by just seven runs, with its second innings in disarray at 162 for 7. A total of 11 wickets tumbled on day three.

The lower order Jharkhand batters are now left battling to delay the inevitable with two more days left in the game.

Ahmed, the left-arm spin bowling all-rounder, also made an impact with the ball, dismissing Anukul Roy (40) and Jharkhand skipper Virat Singh (29) in its second innings.

Opener Aryaman Sen waged a lone battle for Jharkhand with a fighting half century (64 off 132 balls) but Ishan Porel brilliantly set him up with a bouncer and dismissed him at the fag-end of the day.

It was a total batting failure for Jharkhand as only three batters managed double digit figures with Aryaman stitching two fifty-plus stands with Anukul Roy and then with Singh.

Earlier, resuming the day on 238 for 5, Bengal lost its keeper-batter Abishek Porel (33) with just eight runs added to his overnight total.

BRIEF SCORES: Jharkhand 173 & 162/7 in 48 overs (A Sen 64, A Roy 40) vs Bengal 328 in 108 overs (S Ahmed 81, A Easwaran 77, SK Gharami 68, A Kumar 3/89); Uttarakhand 116 & 106/3 in 41 overs vs Karnataka 606 in 162.5 overs (S Gopal 161*, M Agarwal 83, R Samarth 82, D Padikkal 69, N Jose 62, A Negi 4/109, M Mishra 3/117); Saurashtra 303 & 138/4 in 54 overs (A Vasavada 44 batting) vs Punjab 431 in 124.3 overs (N Dhir 131, P Singh 126, M Singh 91, A Malhotra 41, D Jadeja 5/109, P Bhut 3/114); Andhra 379 & 93 in 32.3 overs (A Khan 4/24, G Yadav 3/10) vs Madhya Pradesh 228 & 58/0 in 16 overs