BHUBANESWAR 06-Jan-2020
Flying high with three successive wins, Odisha were brought down to the earth by Tripura in their truncated Ranji Trophy Elite Group-C match, which ended in a draw at Maharaja Bir Bikram College Stadium in Agartala today.
Odisha were forced to follow on after they conceded a first-innings lead of 167 runs in the four-day match, which was reduced to two days as no play was possible for the first two days due to rain and wet outfield.
In reply to a competitive first-innings total of 288 for six declared by host Tripura, Odisha were bundled out for 121. The visitors were in dire straits at one stage, losing six wickets for 35 runs. They could muster a three-figure total thanks to a bold half-century by Biplab Samantaray (51 off 69, 10x4) and useful knocks of 21 and 17 not out by Suryakant Pradhan and Basant Mohanty respectively.
However, Odisha fought back to salvage one point from the drawn match by putting up good batting in the second innings. They were 71 for one at stumps on the fourth and final day. Odisha also retained their place at the top of the group table with 22 points from four games.
Earlier put into bat by Odisha captain Subhranshu Senapati, Tripura rode on an unbeaten century by Milind Kumar and a half-century each by Samrat Singha and Manisankar Murasingh to set up a challenging total before Odisha.
Murasingh was adjudged the Player of the Match and his impressive allround performance. Besides scoring 72 in their only innings, he bagged three wickets in the first innings of the visiting team.
SCOREBOARD
TRIPURA (1st innings): Bikramkumar Das c Poddar b R Mohanty 5, Samrat Singha c Lenka b B Mohanty 65, Tanmay Mishra c Lenka b R Mohanty 4, Kamal Das b Roy 20, Milind Kumar not out 105, Rajat Dey c B Samantray b Poddar 4, Manisankar Murasingh c Mishra b R Mohanty 72, Nirupam Sen not out 0; Extras (b-4, lb-9) 13
Total (6 wkts decl, 82 overs) 288
Did not Bat: Rana Dutta, Ajoy Sarkar, Dwaipayan Bhattacharjee
Fall of wickets: 23-1 (B Das, 5.2), 27-2 (T Mishra, 7.3), 65-3 (K Das, 28), 157-4 (S Singha, 58.3), 162-5 (R Dey, 61.1), 288-6 (Murasingh, 81.3)
Bowling: Basant Mohanty 22-5-50-1, Rajesh Mohanty 17-2-78-3, Suryakant Pradhan 16-3-57-0, Pappu Roy 19-5-51-1, Govinda Poddar 8-1-39-1.
ODISHA (1st innings): Govinda Poddar c Sen b Dutta 8, Shantanu Mishra b Dutta 11, Debasish Samantray b Sarkar 5, Subhranshu Senapati lbw b Murasingh 0, Biplab Samantray lbw b Dutta 51, Abhishek Raut c Dey b Murasingh 1, Sujit Lenka lbw b Murasingh 5, Suryakant Pradhan c Dutta b Bhattacharjee 21, Rajesh Mohanty b Dutta 0, Basant Mohanty not out 17, Pappu Roy lbw b Dutta 0; Extras (lb 2) 2
Total (All out, 40.2 overs) 121
Fall of wickets: 13-1 (Poddar, 6), 22-2 (Mishra, 13.4), 24-3 (Senapati, 17.5), 24-4 (D Samantray, 18.3), 25-5 (Raut, 19.4), 35-6 (Lenka, 22), 81-7 (Pradhan, 29.5), 82-8 (Mohanty, 30.2), 121-9 (B Samantray, 40.1), 121-10 (Roy, 40.2)
Bowling: Manisankar Murasingh 13-5-36-3, Rana Dutta 13.2-3-23-5, Ajoy Sarkar 10-2-47-1, Dwaipayan Bhattacharjee 3-2-8-1, Rajat Dey 1-0-5-0.
ODISHA (2nd innings): G Poddar not out 33, Shantanu Mishra c Mishra b Dutta 6, Subhranshu Senapati not out 26; Extras (b-4, lb-2) 6
Total (1 wkt, 22 overs) 71
Fall of wickets: 8-1 (Mishra, 5.5)
Bowling: A Sarkar 4-2-13-0, R Dutta 5-1-7-1, R Dey 4-0-20-0, D Bhattacharjee 6-1-14-0, B Das 3-0-11-0.
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PHOTO: File picture of Odisha batsman Biplab Samantaray.
