Bengal crushes champion Madhya Pradesh, will face Saurashtra in Ranji final

Bengal rode on an all-round performance to thrash defending champions Madhya Pradesh by 306 runs at the Holkar Stadium here on Sunday to enter the Ranji Trophy final where they will face Saurashtra in a repeat of the 2020 final. Bengal last won the Ranji Trophy title in the 1989–90 season and will host Saurashtra in the final as they have collected more points in the group stage than their rivals. Saurashtra defeated Karnataka by four wickets in the second semi-final.

Anustup Majumdar and Sudeep Kumar Gharami scored 200 and 153 respectively in the first innings as Bengal posted a mammoth total of 438. Pradipta Pramanik also impressed with her all-round skills, scoring an unbeaten 60, followed by a five-wicket haul in the second innings. Bengal scored 279 in the second innings, setting a mammoth target of 548 for the defending champions. Chasing a big target on the fifth and final day, Madhya Pradesh got off to a positive start with key contributions from opener Yash Dubey (30 runs) and Himanshu Mantri (16 runs).

But Shahbaz Ahmed and Akash Deep dismissed both the openers. Rajat Patidar (52 runs) and Shubham Sharma (24 runs) then scored some useful runs with restrained batting but the target was too big to achieve on the last day. Young left-arm spinner Pramanik did not allow the batsmen to settle at the crease, dismissing Shubham and Venkatesh Iyer (19 runs) while Mukesh Kumar took the wicket of Patidar, leaving the team at 179 for five. Pramanik then took five wickets dismissing Kumar Kartikeya, Avesh Khan and Gaurav Yadav to take his team to the final. Bengal will be looking to avenge their 2020 final defeat at home, where they lost the match on first innings lead in Rajkot.