After a patchy show on day one, Bengal on Wednesday seized the initiative running through the Railways batting line up to bowl them out for 259 and then reaching 169 for two at stumps in Kolkata.
The day belonged to Bengal as Ranadeb Bose first made the most of the dewy conditions and then the hosts batters showed some sublime form to push the visitors on the backfoot.
Bose who finished the innings with figures of 29.3-14-55-5 was almost unplayable adding four wickets to his overnight haul of one.
Yere Goud, who was on 18 overmight, went on to score 47 runs. He was the only Railways batsman to have a decent score with the lower order collapsing before hostile Bengal bowling. Raja Ali was the first to go without adding anything to overnight score of eight.
After that it was a procession to the pavillion with Goud providing some stability to take the score past 200.
Scorecard
Railways 1st innings (overnight 191-5)
S Bangar lbw b Paul 21
A Pagnis c Tiwary b Shukla 9
V Saxena lbw b Bose 65
S Khanolkar c Dasgupta b Paul 35
JP Yadav c Arindam Das b Lahiri 15
Y Goud b Bose 47
Raja Ali lbw b Bose 8
M Kartik c Jhunjhunwala b Shukla 18
K Parida c Dasgupta b Bose 12
S Wankhede c Dasgupta b Bose 1
Harvinder Singh not out 4
Extras (b 2, lb 10, w 1, nb 11) 24
Total (all out, 117.3 overs, 490 mins) 259
Fall of wickets: 1-30, 2-30, 3-110, 4-139, 5-181, 6-193, 7-230, 8-242, 9-250, 10-259
Bowling: Paul 35 9 73 2, Bose 29.3 14 55 5, Shukla 15 3 46 2 (4nb, 1w), Lahiri 25 7 58 1 (5nb), Singh 13 6 15 0 (2nb)
Bengal 1st innings
A Das not out 65
S Das lbw b Yadav 19
A Jhunjhunwala b Yadav 55
R Gavaskar not out 11
Extras (b 4, lb 11, nb 4) 19
Total (2 wickets, 63 overs) 169
Fall of wickets: 1-39, 2-144
Bowling: Yadav 17 8 26 2, Harvinder Singh 14 4 37 0, Bangar 10 2 29 0, Kartik 15 2 37 0 (4nb), Parida 4 0 11 0, Khanolkar 3 0 14 0
