By Admin 
Bengal’s 37 runs from the 31 overs before lunch at a Ranji Trophy duel with Railways made one wonder if the scoreboard operator was on strike. Maybe time itself had paused for reflection.
However, the visitor eventually managed to clean up its act, thanks to Anustup Majumdar’s 18th First-Class hundred, a timely intervention from Shahbaz Ahmed, and the drying up of the remnant moisture from the pitch.
Of course, Sudip Gharami asked Railways to field in the fourth-round Elite Group-C fixture. The red-soil track at the Lalbhai Contractor Stadium here is best suited to batting on the opening day owing to minimal lateral movement.
Hence, it was baffling to see Bengal’s scoring worm curl up and fall asleep less than halfway into the graph on Saturday.
Gharami bid goodbye first for a 16-ball duck, having fished for a delivery wide outside off-stump. The second slip almost made a hash of the edge, but ended up parrying it to wicketkeeper Upendra Yadav in the nick of time. Upendra got into the act again, diving to his right to send the debutant Aditya Purohit into the hut.
After Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal was trapped plumb and Shakir Habib Gandhi saw the ball balloon to first slip, Anustup — granted a lifeline after Kunal Yadav overstepped in the 28th over — and Shahbaz stepped on the gas.
Shahbaz even unleashed an audacious pull off Z. A. Khan’s bowling to bring up the first six of the match in the 51st over. The southpaw fell on 86 when Suraj Ahuja held on to a stunning catch at square leg.
Anustup’s fighting knock, that combined grit and grace in equal measure, is the highlight of the day. The 41-year-old veteran not only played the sheet-anchor role but also unfurled 12 crisp boundaries when the gaps opened up.
The scores:
Bengal — 1st innings: Aditya Purohit c Upendra b Kunal 6, Sudip Kumar Gharami c Upendra b Adarsh 0, Shakir Habib Gandhi c Vivek b Kunal 28, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal lbw Kunal 5, Anustup Majumdar (batting) 103, Shahbaz Ahmed c Ahuja b Karn 86, Sumanta Gupta (batting) 39; Extras (lb-3, nb-3): 6; Total (for five wkts. in 85 overs): 273.
Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-9, 3-27, 4-61, 5-195.
Railways bowling: Adarsh 17-5-29-1, Kunal 19-8-56-3, Khan 13-4-49-0, Akash 17-2-51-0, Merai 2-0-9-0, Karn 15-2-64-1, Pratham 1-0-6-0, Saif 1-0-6-0.