Bengal pace leaves Rajasthan in rubble

The hosts couldn’t have asked for a better start. They need at least two points from this encounter to seal their semi-final berth. Bose (6 for 34) carried on from where he left in Hyderabad where Bengal rode his 10-wicket haul to edge past the hosts. At stumps, Bengal were comfortably placed at 80 for 1, with Abhishek Jhunjhunwala (40) and Subhamoy Das (39) at the crease, bringing the deficit down to 113.

Even as the Bose-Sarkar duo dominated the show, much of the highlight obviously was on Ganguly, who, despite going wicketless in a six-over spell, had his influence on the day’s play. The former Indian skipper was the obvious boss on the ground during the second and third sessions, setting the field up for the Bengal bowlers.

Of course, there was the odd uneasy moment, when Ganguly was clearly seen to be content chatting away at third-man in between overs.

For the visitors, heavily weakened by the absence of stars Vikram Solanki, Kabir Ali and Gagan Khoda and languishing at the bottom of the table, the only form of resistance came from their flamboyant skipper Jadeja (41) and the experienced Rahul Kanwat (62).

After Sarkar sent the inexperienced opening pair of S Vijay and Rohit Sharma back into the hut within the first half hour, Kanwat joined Nikhil Doru to race to a daring, run-a-ball half-century. It appeared that at 75 for 2, Rajasthan were setting themselves up. That’s when Bose struck, removing the over-adventurous Kanwat, and following it up with a spree of wickets – mostly through edges flying to the keeper and in the slip cordon.

Jadeja tried stemming the rot with an uncharacteristically watchful 129-minute knock. But even he too couldn’t survive Bose’s whirlwind run, getting struck plumb in front off a fast, incoming pitched up delivery.

With today’s six-wicket haul, Bose took his Ranji Trophy tally this season to 37 wickets, trailing only Joginder Sharma by just one scalp in the race for the most wickets.

Brief scores: Rajasthan 193 in 58.2 overs (Rahul Kanwat 62, Ajay Jadeja 41, Ranadeb Bose 6/34, Sourav Sarkar 4/78) v Bengal 80/1 in 28 overs (Abhishek Jhunjhunwala batting 40, Subhamoy Das batting 39).