Ranji Trophy 2024-25: Karnataka vs Bengal, Round 4, Day 1 Review

In one of the Round 4 of Ranji Trophy 2024/25 Elite Group C games, home team Karnataka faced Bengal at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium, Bengaluru. Karnataka won the toss and elected to field first on a pitch which looked like a friendly greenish one.

Karnataka tasted early success, scalping two quick wickets with 21 runs on the board. Karnataka pacers bowled beautifully in the first hour of the morning session, forcing Bengal to score at the rate of 1.5 runs per over. Vasuki Koushik 3/29 (18), who was the pick of the bowlers, took those two early wickets. But subsequently their middle order batters played cautiously, respecting the good balls, leaving well and avoiding losing a wicket.

In the second session, it was an excellent batting display from Bengal batters as their skipper Anustup Majumdar 101(164) played a magnificent knock and registered his 17th First Class hundred. He got excellent support from Sudip Chatterjee 55(120) who batted beautifully and registered his 26th First Class fifty. Both the batters stitched a fantastic partnership of 100 runs from 161 deliviers which helped Bengal from an early collapse. But they lost Sudip Chatterjee at the end of the second session.

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In the third and final session, Shreyas Gopal got the better of Majumdar who was looking dangerous. But Bengal star all-rounder Shahbaz Ahmed 54*(103) played superbly and registered his 13th First Class fifty. He made sure that there was no more collapses as Bengal finished for 249/5 in 78 overs at end of Day 1. Both Shahbaz Ahmed and wicketkeeper-batter Wriddhiman Saha 6*(7) are the batters at the crease who will resume their batting on Day 2.

Abhilash Shetty and Shreyas Gopal scalped one wicket apiece. Day 1 was called a bit early because of bad light. Bengal are in a comfortable position despite Karnataka fighting hard in the day and being not far behind in the game. The day belonged to the Bengal skipper Anustup Majumdar and Karnataka pacer Vasuki Koushik who was the pick of the bowlers from Karnataka.