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Bengal captain Sudip Gharami's fourth List-A ton helped Bengal beat Bihar by six wickets in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2024-25. With this win, Bengal also qualified for the quarter-finals. Sudip remained unbeaten on 107 from 128 balls as Bengal chased down 236 with 45 balls to go.
Shami and Pradipta starred for Bengal with the ball
Bengal were boosted by the presence of Mohammed Shami, who could not play in the earlier matches of the tournament. Shami returned with 1 wickets while giving away only 28 runs in 8 overs. He dismissed the youngster Vaibhav Surayavanshi who played an exciting knock of 26 from 16 balls.
Before that, Bengal won the toss and elected to ball first at the Gymkhana Ground in Hyderabad. Bihar had started well with young gun Vaibhav Surayavanshi hitting three fours and two sixes against Mukesh Kumar. But, the youngest player in IPL auction's history could not face the heat from Mohammed Shami and nicked one behind to Abishek Porel.
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Post that, it was Piyush Singh's inning of 89 from 112 balls that took Bihar to a respectable total of 235 in the first inning. Bipin Saurabh also played a good knock of 34 from 44 balls but the rest of the batters could not get going against the spin of Pradipta Pramanik, who was the player of the match in the last match against Kerala.
Pramanik was the pick of the bowler with a bowler figure of 34/3 while Karan Lal and Mukes Kumar picked up two wickets each.
Porel and Gharami put a 111-run opening partnership for Bengal
During the chase, Bengal openers gave a solid start. Wicket-keeper batter Abishek Porel scored a quick fifty but was dismissed in the 18th over after adding 55 from 53 balls. Their opening stand of 111 runs gave others the platform to finish the work.
But, two back-to-back wickets of Sudip Chatterjee (1) and Anustup Majumdar (0) made things interesting. However, Sumanta Gupta's solid 30 from 29 balls and Karan Lal's unbeaten 37 from 39 balls helped Sudip Gharami to take Bengal over the line.
Sudip Gharami completed his 4th List-A ton and remained unbeaten on 107 from 128 balls, including 13 fours and one six. He was adjudged the player of the match as well.
Bengal with 18 points from 5 games have already qualified for the quarter-finals and will face Madhyapradesh on 5th January in their final Group stage match.