Ranji Trophy: Lahiri spins Bengal to stunning win over Tamil Nadu

Offspinner Saurasish Lahiri, bowling unchanged on the final morning, triggered a stunning Tamil Nadu collapse to give Bengal a thrilling four-run win in a low-scoring game at the MA Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai and most likely propel them to the knock-outs at the expense of the host side. Only a Baroda win over Rajasthan would keep Bengal from the next round. Tamil Nadu, chasing 184 to win, appeared to be in control at 110 for 1 with Dinesh Karthik and S Badrinath at the crease. Then their innings turned in to a slow-motion car wreck as 8 wickets fell for 48 runs over the course of 30 overs. That left the last wicket pair of Malolan Rangarajan and Aushik Srinivas needing 26 for victory. They managed 22 before Writtick Chatterjee, Bengal’s other offie, trapped Rangarajan leg-before for 11 to seal a triumph that looked improbable after Bengal were bowled out for 130 in their first innings. [caption id=“attachment_1317899” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational Image. Getty Images[/caption] The 32-year-old Lahiri, who finished with figures of 33-11-62-7, began the slide with the dismissal of Badrinath, who was given out lbw for 21. Karthik followed 15 runs and the slow drip-drip-drip of wickets had begun. Baba Aparajith stuck around to make 33 and but his wicket – the seventh of the innings – set off a mini-collapse of three wickets for two runs and suddenly Bengal was odds-on to win the game. The 22-run partnership for the 10th wicket was TN’s third largest of the innings and one more twist in the tail, but the Bengal bowlers held their nerve to come out on top. With both sides needing a win to have a chance of moving on, Bengal looked to have made a mistake by choosing to bat first after they were skittled for 130, with Rangarajan taking 6 for 30. Shockingly, Tamil Nadu promptly folded for 85 in their first-innings, with only two batsmen getting to double figures. The bowlers kept TN in the game by knocking over Bengal for 134 in their second innings – not one Bengal batsmen managed a fifty in either innings. Karthik then took on the responsibility of opening and the tactic seemed to have worked as he added 72 with Abhinav Mukund and became the first batsman to go past the half-century mark. Lahiri, though, would end up having the final word. Brief scores from all the matches: Group A: Gujarat 253 and 67/3 vs Mumbai 154 and 273 in Valsad Odisha 242 and 33/0 vs Haryana 626/4 dec. (Rahul Dewan 273, Sachin Rana 157, Nitin Saini 102 not out) in Bhubaneshwar Delhi 202 and 132/6 (Gautam Gambhir 26, Virender Sehwag 11) vs Karnataka 289 in Delhi Punjab 516 beat Jharkhand 216 (Rajwinder Singh 5/68, Gurkeerat Singh 4/40) and 127 (Gurkeerat Singh 4/59) (f/o) by an innings and 173 runs in Dhanbad Group B: Baroda 236 and 112/6 (Irfan Pathan 52 not out) vs Rajasthan 333 in Jaipur Railways 460/4 (Arindam Ghosh 167 not out, Mahesh Rawat 163 not out) vs Uttar Pradesh in Lucknow Bengal 130 and 139 beat Tamil Nadu 85 and 180 (Saurasish Lahiri 7/62) by four runs in Chennai Saurashtra 177 and 33/1 beat Services 72 and 135 by nine wickets in Rajkot Group C: Goa 267 and 43/2 beat Andhra 148 and 160 by eight wickets in Porvorim Hyderabad 201 and 329/5 vs Kerala 264 in Hyderabad Tripura 280 and 103/2 v Jammu and Kashmir 325 (Parvez Rasool 83) in Agartala Assam 152 and 94/4 vs Maharashtra 361 and 134 in Guwahati