Bengal, Asom enter knock out stage

Bhubaneswar, Feb 17 (UNI) Bengal and Asom entered the knock out stage by registering victories over Orissa and Jharkhand respectively in the last league matches of the One day Limited Over Ranji Trophy (East Zone) tournament at Barbati Stadium in Cuttack and Infosys ground here today.

The last of the league stage matches today turned out to be close contest with Bengal defeating Orissa in a truncated 22 overs match by 10 runs and Asom wining by 13 runs against Jharkhand.

At Barbati Stadium, the Bengal-Orissa encounter was delayed till the post lunch session due to overnight rains and wet ground condition.

Winning the toss and opting to bat, Bengal batsmen provided a brisk start with openers S Das and Wriddhiman Saha sending the Orissa bowlers on a leather hunt.

They put on 48 runs off seven overs before losing the first wicket. Das scored 36 of 35 balls while Saha hit 55 in just 44 balls.

Rohan Gavaskar and Manoj Tiwari also had a breezy partnership with Tiwari scoring 19 of just 14 balls and Gavaskar also scoring the same number of runs of 23 balls. Laxmi Ratan Shukla ensured that Bengal posted a stiff target of eight runs per over by some big hitting. Shulka hit one six and two fours in 13 balls and scored 25 runs.

The Bengal innings ended at 175 for six in their alloted 22 overs.

None of the Orissa bowlers could make any impression.

Jayachandra and Niranjan Behera took two wickets each but Behera was expensive as his five overs cost 43 runs.

Orissa's hopes of overcoming the eight run per over target received an early set back when the hard hitting opener B Mohapatra was run out for two and Niranjan Behera, Prabhanjan Mallick also failed cheaply scoring 10 and 7 respectively.

However, opener B S Pati and P Jaychandra put up a spirited fight with Pati scoring 51 of 41 balls and Jayachandra hitting 38 of 28 balls. Pati had three sixes to his credit. But once the partnership was broken the run chase faltered. Subit Biswal and Sanjaya Satpathy with 24 and 12 took Orissa close to the target but the innings folded up ten runs short as the hosts were all out for 165 with two balls to spare.

Bengal simmer Ranadeb Bose claimed 3 for 33 while Laxmi Ratan Shukla took 3 for 40.

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