Tiwary and Ahmed lead jittery Bengal’s fightback against MP
MUMBAI: Manoj Tiwary juggles cricket and politics these days, but at 36 he can still showcase the steel in his game, the kind that holds up the often ignored domestic game. On Wednesday, with Bengal in the dumps on Day 2 of their semi-final against Madhya Pradesh, he led a remarkable fightback that could decide whether the former champions make it to the title clash.
One thing Bengal have done through this season is not losing faith when the chips are down. And it was their player with over 9,200 first-class, and knocks of 73 and 136 in the quarter-final run fest against Jharkhand behind him, who provided that fightback. Madhya Pradesh, 341 all out after Himanshu Mantri was out for 165 (327b, 19x4, 1x6), had reduced Bengal to 54/5 when Tiwary and Shahbaz Ahmed came together. Then followed a gritty battle as the MP bowlers were wore down by Tiwary (84*) and Ahmed (72*), who stitched a 143-run unbroken sixth-wicket partnership to take their team to 197/5 at stumps at Alur, Bengaluru.
Bengal still trail by 144 runs, but would take heart from the effort with three days left to play.
As play moved towards finish, it was the Bengal pair that was in control having dug in for 50.2 overs. But that had looked unlikely earlier in the day. MP left-arm spinner Kumar Kartikeya (2/43) delivered an early jolt when he dismissed Abhishek Raman (0) and Sudip Kumar Gharami (0) in the first over. Anustup Majumdar (4) was then dismissed by off-spinner Saransh Jain and skipper Abhimanyu Easwaran (22) was caught behind off Puneet Datey, who also got Abishek Porel.
Resuming on their overnight 271/6, MP added 70 runs before being all out. Most of their runs were scored by overnight centurion Mantri, who finally fell to seamer Mukesh Kumar (4/66). Brief scores: MP 341 (H Mantri 165, M Kumar 4/66, S Ahmed 3/86); Bengal 197/5 (M Tiwary
84*, S Ahmed 72*, K Kartikeya 2/43, P Datey 2/34).