KOLKATA: All eyes were on Mohammed Shami on the opening day of the Madhya Pradesh vs Bengal Ranji Trophy Elite Group C match at the Holkar Stadium in Indore on Wednesday. The pacer went through the day with a rather sedate show as Bengal will look for some magic from the India international on Day Two to earn some valuable points from this match.
Getting to play competitive cricket after almost a year, the pacer went wicketless bowling 10 overs giving away 34 runs as the hosts sit pretty at 103 for one after bowling out the visitors for 228. He bowled four overs in the first spell, giving away 16 runs, conceding three fours and bowled 17 dot balls in that spell.
His second spell was slightly better with figures of 6-1-18-0.
Earlier, the MP bowlers responded well, r educing Bengal to 79 for five inside the first session of play after their skipper Shubham Sharma won the toss and decided to field.
It took a heroic knock from Shahbaz Ahmed (92) to help Bengal finish with some runs on the board. The allrounder fell to pacer Aryan Pandey, caught by Rajat Patidar, eight runs short of the three figure mark after facing 82 deliveries and hitting 16 boundaries and one six.
Bengal got off to a terrible start losing opener Shuvam Dey in the first ball of the match.
They continued to lose wickets in regular intervals as Khejroliya was on a hat-trick picking up Sudip Gharami and Rohit Kumar in consecutive deliveries. He piled more miseries on Bengal by dislodging in-form opener Sudip Chatterjee's stumps as Pandey had Writtick Chatterjee caught behind for 19.
Shami got to pick up the red ball after the Bengal innings folded up at the tea break. But the MP openers Subhranshu Senapati (44*) and Himanshu Mantri managed (13) to see off the new ball. Bengal's only success of the day came when Shami's brother Mohammed Kaif trapped Mantri in front for 13.
But Patidar (41*) and Senapati safely negotiated the Bengal attack without being separated.
