The Hindu : Sport : Tiwary hits unbeaten hundred

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Tiwary hits unbeaten hundred

K.C. Vijaya Kumar

Ganapathy and Ashwin claim two wickets apiece

— Photo: Sampath Kumar

MAKING MERRY: Bengal’s Manoj Tiwary essayed crisp shots during his unbeaten century against Tamil Nadu in the quarterfinals of the Ranji Trophy on Friday.

Bangalore: Manoj Tiwary’s unbeaten hundred lent spirit to the Bengal innings in the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal against Tamil Nadu that commenced at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Friday.

Tiwary’s century (134 n.o., 277m, 178b, 19x4) marginally vindicated Bengal skipper’s Laxmi Ratan Shukla’s decision to bat on winning the toss and helped Bengal finish with 292 for five at close on the opening day.

Sluggish start

The Bengal innings had a sluggish start as openers Rohan Banerjee and Arindam Das adopted the wait-and-watch method while the Tamil Nadu seamers led by L. Balaji bent their backs on a pitch that had its initial share of bounce before reverting to its true batting-friendly nature.

However, consolidation never happened as seamer C. Ganapathy trapped a shuffling Arindam and the cracks widened as Banerjee was short of his crease as Wriddhiman Saha’s drive ricocheted off Palani Amarnath’s palms and knocked out the non-strikers’ stumps.

Tiwary walked in at 45 for two and along with Saha (53), shared a 79-run third-wicket partnership that partially revived Bengal. In his early minutes, Tiwary hood-winked the fielders placed at the fine-leg and square-leg fence for the miscued hook as Amarnath repeatedly bounced.

The partnership had its share of luck as a Tiwary snick fell short of a diving M. Vijay at first slip while Saha on 18 watched Abhinav Mukund drop a stiff catch at gully.

After lunch, Saha was done in by Ganapathy’s change of pace as he failed to connect his sweep and Shukla swept off-spinner R. Ashwin onto Abhinav Mukund’s shins and the rebound was grabbed by Dinesh Karthik as Bengal wobbled at 131 for four in 46.1 overs.

Tiwary, however, stitched a 127-run fifth-wicket partnership with a confident Dibyendu Chakrabarty (57), who succumbed to a diving catch by C. Suresh at square-leg.

Tiwary essayed crisp shots in his ninth Ranji hundred and even had time to pause a reverse sweep and jab away a four. Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan’s inability to rifle down the stumps when Tiwary was stranded on 52 and Ashwin’s belated attempt to pouch a checked-drive in his follow-through when the centurion was on 109, were the few blemishes in an otherwise faultless innings on a day when Karthik swapped his bowlers around in 24 spells with limited returns.

The scores: Bengal – 1st innings: R. Banerjee (run out) 24, Arindam Das lbw b Ganapathy 7, W. Saha lbw b Ganapathy 53, M. Tiwary (batting) 134, L.R. Shukla c D. Karthik b Ashwin 1, D. Chakrabarty c C. Suresh b Ashwin 57, A. Chowdhury (batting) 7. Extras (b-4, lb-2, nb-3): 9. Total (for five wkts. in 90 overs): 292.

Fall of wickets: 1-20, 2-45, 3-124, 4-131, 5-258.

Tamil Nadu bowling: Balaji 19-4-49-0, Amarnath 21-3-62-0, Ganapathy 14-3-29-2, Ashwin 20-0-85-2, C. Suresh 13-2-46-0, S. Suresh Kumar 2-0-10-0, Vidyut 1-0-5-0.

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