Vijay Hazare Trophy: Gharami leads from front as Bengal trumps Bihar
Vijay Hazare Trophy: Gharami leads from front as Bengal trumps Bihar
Sudip Kumar Gharami led from the front with a superbly paced century (107 n.o, 128b, 13×4, 1×6) to guide Bengal to an emphatic six-wicket win against Bihar in the Vijay Hazare Trophy Group E match at Gymkhana Ground on Friday.
Chasing 236, Bengal was off to an impressive start with openers Abishek Porel (55, 53b, 7×4) and Gharami, who was dropped on 17 when Piyush Kumar floored a simple catch at point in the seventh over, putting on 111 for the first wicket in 17.4 overs. Porel may have been more fluent while the captain seemed content with picking up singles and twos to ensure the asking rate never really crept up.
Yet again, Porel holed out to long-on off leg-spinner Himanshu Singh, while looking to break the shackles and post a big score.
Bihar came back strongly with offie Suraj Kashyap having Sudip Chatterjee stumped by Binny and then trapping in-form Anustup Majumdar for a second-ball duck in the 18th over to reduce Bengal to 112 for three in 18.4 overs.
Then, a fruitful stand of 53 between Gharami and the free-stroking Sumanta Gupta (30, 29b, 2×4, 1×6) put Bengal innings back on rails, its cause helped by some shoddy ground fielding.
After Himanshu induced a poor pull stroke from Sumanta to be caught on the mid-wicket fence to make it 165 for four, Gharami and the enterprising Karan Lal (37 n.o., 39b, 4×4, 1×6) ensured there were no more hiccups with Karan finishing off the match in style with a six off Suraj Kashyap.
Earlier, Bihar owed its decent total on a pitch where the odd ball kept low, thanks to a fine knock by Piyush Kumar Singh (89, 112b, 9×4) and a handy contribution from Bipin Saurabh (34, 44b, 3×4, 1×6).
The 13-year-old opener Vaibhav Suryavanshi (26, 16b, 3×4, 2×6) played a cameo as India pacer Mohammed Shami had him edging to wicketkeeper in his impressive first spell.
A disciplined bowling effort helped Bengal check the run-flow with left-arm spinner Pradipta Pramanik and Karan striking at regular intervals.
