Bengal continued to set the pace in Group C of the Ranji Trophy after crushing Railways by an innings and 120 runs in Surat. They are the only team in the competition to win three games this season (from four rounds).
Bengal won the toss and elected to bat first. They had a poor start, losing four wickets for just 61 runs. After that, the old warhorse Anustup Majumdar and all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed stitched together a partnership of 134 runs that not only provided the innings much-needed stability but also laid the foundation for a big score. After Shahbaz was dismissed by Karn Sharma for 86, Majumdar continued and put on a partnership of 134 with Sumanta Gupta to take Bengal’s score beyond 300. The lower-order batters performed well and Bengal finished on 474.
Majumdar was top scorer with 135, including 19 fours, while Gupta scored 120. For Railways, Kunal Yadav took four wickets.
Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal was brilliant for Bengal as he removed the first four batters from Railway’s top order with the score just 16. Bhargav Merai and Upendra Yadav showed some resistance with a partnership of 133 but all the other batters failed to make any impact as Railways were bundled out for 222 in their first innings.
Bengal imposed the follow-on and Shahbaz was lethal with the ball in Railways’ second innings. He did not let any batters settle and took 7/56 to take his team to a comfortable victory.
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