Ranji Trophy: Bengal create history with top-nine batters scoring half centuries

Bengal cricket team rewrote history books when all nine of their top batters scored half centuries against Jharkhand in the Ranji Trophy quarter-final. The record was achieved when Sayan Mondal brought about his fifty but Akash Deep ticked one more for good measure. It was the first instance of of the top-eight batters of a team scoring at least a half century in a first-class innings.

Mondal’s fifty matched the previous record of Australian cricket team against Oxford and Cambridge Universities registered in 1893. Then, Australia had eight batters scoring at least a half century. That milestone, albeit, was not achieved by the top-eight players.

Captain Abhimanyu Easwaran and fellow-opener Abhishek Raman got things going with 65 and 61 respectively. Later, Sudip Kumar Gharami (186), Anustup Majumdar (117), Manoj Tiwary (73), Abhishek Porel (68), Shahbaz Ahmed (78), Mondal (53*) and Deep (53*) chimed in to take Bengal to 773/7 declared.

There were multiple century stands by the Bengal batting: Gharami and Majumdar put together 243 runs, 109 runs between Tiwary and Porel, Shahbaz and Mondal stitched a 101 run stand.

Raman had retired hurt when he was on 41 and rejoined the batting when Majumdar was dismissed.

Amid this carnage by Bengal, Sushant Mishra posted figures of 3/140 and Shahbaz Nadeem went for 175 runs while picking two wickets.

Prior to the Bengal-Jharkhand game in Bengaluru, there had been 27 occasions when seven 50-plus scores had been recorded in a first-class innings, according to Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians records, reports ESPNCricinfo.

Of those, three had come in the Ranji Trophy: Maharashtra vs Northern India in 1940-41, Holkar vs Mysore in 1945-46, and Bengal vs Bihar in 1996-97.

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