Bengal snatched an exciting one-wicket win against Tamil Nadu to earn six points in a Ranji Trophy Group 'B' match at the MA Chidambaram stadium in Chennai on Saturday.
Requiring 216 for victory, the visitors scraped home in a tense finish as Tamil Nadu spinner Rahil S Shah came up with another five-wicket haul to keep the team in the hunt.
Praditpa Pramanik was the hero for Bengal with a knock of 25 (97 balls, 1X6) as he batted with determination under pressure to guide the team home.
Tamil Nadu mounted pressure on the Bengal batsmen with Shah being the dangerman, but they came through showing skills to play on a wearing wicket.
The home side began the day looking for wickets and earned early success when the Bengal captain Manoj Tiwary, the key man in the chase, fell leg-before-wicket to T Natarajan for 25.
It was anyone's game as Bengal needed over 100 runs to secure a win.
Sudip Chaterjee (40) brought his experience to the fore and scored important runs as the team inched forward.
Tamil Nadu fought back by taking a clutch of wickets as Shah removed Anustup Majumdar, Writtick Bijoy Chatterjee and Shreevats Goswami to leave Bengal tottering at 150 for 7.
Sudip Chatterjee and Pramanik added 55 runs a little over 25 overs, keeping the attack-minded TN bowlers at bay, to bring Bengal closer.
Chatterjee was stumped by N Jagadeesan with Bengal nine runs short of the target to produce more drama.
Ashoke Dinda (1) was run out by Shah with two runs to get.
However, Pramanik and No.11 batsman Ishan Porel scampered through a leg-bye to seal a memorable victory, the first of the season for Bengal.
Bengal opener Abhishek Kumar Raman was named man of the match for his knocks of 98 and 53 on a tough wicket for batsmen.
Meanwhile, in other matches in the group, Madhya Pradesh defeated Kerala by five wickets in Thiruvananthapuram and Hyderabad thrashed Himachal Pradesh by 10 wickets.
Brief scores: Tamil Nadu 263 all out and 141 all out lost to Bengal 189 all out and 216 for 9 in 82.5 overs (Abhishek Kumar Raman 53, Sudip Chatterjee 40, Pradipta Pramanik 25 not out, Rahil Shah 5 for 68) by 1 wicket.
Points: Bengal: 6, TN: 0.
At Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala 62 and 455 all out in 121.1 overs (Sachin Baby 143, Vishnu Vinod 193 not out, Basil Thampi 57) lost to Madhya Pradesh 328 all out in 120 overs (Rajat Patidar 73, Naman Ojha 79, Jalaj Saxena 4 for 120) and 194 for 5 in 62 overs (Rajat Patidar 77, Shubham Sharma 48 not out).
Points: Madhya Pradesh: 6, Kerala: 0.
At Hyderabad: Himachal Pradesh 351 all out in 126.4 overs (P S Chopra 110, M J Dagar 61, Tanay Thyagarajan 4 for 86) and 97 all out in 45.2 overs (Ravi Kiran 4 for 34, Tanay Thyagarajan 3 for 9) lost to Hyderabad 352 all out in 130.5 overs (Akshat Reddy 99, T Ravi Teja 75, Arpit Gulera 3 for 64) and 97 for no loss in 28.2 overs (Tanmay Agarwal 48 not out).
Points: Hyderabad: 7, MP: 0.
