Mumbai, Dec 2: After being bowled out for 297 in the morning, the Mumbai bowlers wrapped up the Bengal innings for 201 later in the day to push Bengal on the back foot at the Brabourne Stadium today.

Even as the rest of the line-up caved in to the Mumbai bowling attack, Bengal opener Arindam Das fought a lone battle and carried his bat through with a gritty 98. The Mumbai bowling attack, led by Ankeet Chavan’s four-wicket haul, struck at regular intervals and prevented partnerships from building to put the hosts on top.

Earlier, Mumbai lost their remaining three wickets for 35 runs in the morning. Dhawal Kulkarni and Ramesh Powar added 31 runs to the overnight total of 262, before the former was sent by Iresh Saxena. Striking again in the same over, the left-arm spinner claimed Kshemal Waingankar for four on the last ball. Laxmi Ratan Shukla then dismissed Powar in the next over to end Mumbai’s first innings for 297.

The Mumbai bowlers hit the deck hard from the word go and beat the batsmen a few times after taking the field in the first session. However, their first wicket came in the form of a run-out in the sixth over. Opener Rohan Benerjee trying to sneak in a third run failed to cover his ground after being sent back by Arindam Das. Writam Porel was the next to return to the dressing room for two. Skipper Manoj Tiwary then came to the crease and despite a shaky start managed to take Bengal into lunch without losing any more wickets with Arindam at the other end.

Bengal brought up their fifty soon after lunch. Although they were kept on a tight leash by the Mumbai pacers, the duo bided their time in the middle. But soon after the partnership reached fifty, Tiwary survived a half-chance at extra-cover off Ankeet Chavan and was dropped by Wasim Jaffer in the slips off the next ball while on 23. There was more drama to follow in Chavan’s first over as the Bengal captain lofted the spinner for a six over long-on after getting a life, and then followed it up with a four in a similar fashion. However, while attempting to hit the left-arm spinner over mid-off, he offered an easy catch to Salvi to walk back for 39 and end the third wicket partnership for 72. The new batsman Wriddhiman Saha got a reprieve on zero but was caught at forward short-leg by Kaustubh Pawar off Powar’s very next ball.

In the first over of the final session, after Arindam reached his fifty, Subhomoy Das edged Chavan to Jaffer at first slip to leave the team on 132 for five. And a while later Abhishek Jhunjhunwala too returned after adding 10 runs to the total. Shukla who had replaced him in the middle was then trapped lbw by Chavan. And a few overs later, the spinner claimed Veer Pratap Singh as his fourth scalp of the day. Waingankar then polished off the tail with the wickets of Shami Ahmed and Saxena; while Arindam Das was left stranded at the other end and missed out on a well deserved century by two runs.

Building on their 96-run first innings lead Mumbai batted for three more overs and scored six runs, before play was called off.

Brief scores:

At the end of Day 2: Mumbai 1st innings 297 all out in 105.1 overs (D Kulkarni 37, LR Shukla 5/38, I Saxena 4/105); Bengal 1st innings 201 all out in 65.4 overs (Arindam Das 98*, A Chavan 4/ 61, K Waingankar 2/16); Mumbai 2nd innings 6/0 in 3 overs

At the end of Day 1: Mumbai 1st innings 262/7 in 90 overs (W Jaffer 80, A Nayar 62, L R Shukla 4/35)