Left-arm spinner Murtaza Lodhgar followed up his fine performance in the first innings with another five-wicket haul to propel Bengal to a 116-run win over Karnataka on the fourth and last day of their Ranji Trophy Elite Group 'A' league match in Kolkata on Wednesday.
The 27-year-old spinner, playing only his second Ranji match, had returned career best figures of 6/28 on the second day, and finished with an enviable tally of 11 wickets from the match at the Jadavpore University Campus, Salt Lake.
Bengal gleaned four points to begin their Ranji campaign in style, while Karnataka failed open their account.
Karnataka were done in by an inept display from their batsmen who failed to negotiate the guiles of Lodhgar (5/89) and right arm off spinner Sourasish Lahiri (3/46) on a turning track and folded up for 226 in the second innings.
Set a target of 343 for an outright win, the visitors resumed at the overnight score of 41/1, and soon found themselves in trouble at 113/5, before Vijay Bharadwaj (40; 142 m, 103 b, 4x4) and an aggressive Stewart Binny (42; 51m, 40b, 4x6 and 6x1) tried to put up a fightback with a 58 run stand for the sixth wicket.
After Binny was ousted by pacer Ranadeb Bose, the gritty Bhardwaj and veteran Sunil Joshi (15) delayed the inevitable with a seventh wicket partnership of 40, but the tail fell in a heap soon after as the Karnataka innings folded 20 minutes prior to the tea break.
Scoreboard
Bengal 1st innings: 315
Karnataka 1st innings: 179
Bengal 2nd innings: 206
Karnataka 2nd innings:
J Arun Kumar c S Lahiri b S Paul 13
B Rowland c S Ganguly b M Lodhgar 20
S Somasundar lbw b S Lahiri 46
S Ponnappa c S Ganguly b M Lodhgar 14
V Bhardwaj c S Sanyal b S Lahiri 40
T Naidu lbw b S Lahiri 0
S Binny c A Das b R Bose 42
S Joshi c R Bose b M Lodhgar 15
D Ganesh c S Ganguly b M Lodhgar 3
R Vinay Kumar c D Gandhi b M Lodhgar 1
U Patel not out 0
Extras (b-20, lb-5, nb-6, w-1) 32
Total (all out in 78.3 overs) 226
Fall of wickets: 1/16, 2/61, 3/103, 4/113, 5/113, 6/171, 7/212, 8/221, 9/221.
Bowling: S S Paul 10-4-26-1, R Bose 18-6-33-1, M Lodhgar
28.3-4-89-5, S Lahiri 17-3-46-3, S Sanyal 4-3-5-0, R Gavaskar
1-0-2-0.
