Tamil Nadu piled the agony on Bengal, amassing 423 for seven declared in the second innings and then reducing hosts, chasing 497 to win, to 109 for 3, on the penultimate day of the Ranji Trophy match in Kolkata on Thursday.
The day belonged to the visitors as Hemang Badani and K Vasudevadas stitched a brilliant and often arrogant 126-run fifth-wicket partnership to take the wind out of Bengal's sail.
Bengal started the day brightly, as SS Paul dismissed overnight batsman S Sriram for 96, after only eight runs were added to the overnight total, and Satish for naught.
But Vasudevadas and Badani put their heads down and flayed the Bengal bowlers. Badani raced to his 100 with ten hits to the fence and remained unbeaten on 157 off 232 balls with 16 boundaries and one towering six.
Vasudevadas also played a gem of an innings, scoring 62, before an athletic piece of fielding by L R Shukla ran him out.
Tamil Nadu declared at the tea score of 423 for seven, setting Bengal an impossible target of 497 (73-run first innings lead) to win.
Bengal again began disastrously, losing Subhojit Apulk to the fourth ball of the innings for naught. Arindam Das followed two overs later and they were tottering at two wickets for 10 runs.
A Jhunjhunwala and S Lahari took Bengal past 50 runs before the latter fell after a strokeful 39 runs off 30 balls. He was the third victim of Jesuraj, who earlier scalped the Bengal openers.
At stumps, Ganguly was not out on 25 and A Jhunjhunwala on 34 as Bengal ended the day on 109 for 3.
Scorecard
Tamil Nadu (1st innings): 218
Bengal (1st innings): 145
Tamil Nadu (2nd innings):
A Kapoor lbw Paul 18
S Sriram b Paul 96
S Badrinath c A Das b Ganguly 17
S Sharath lbw Ganguly 1
H Badani not out 157
R Sathish c Arindam Das b Paul 0
K Vasudevadas run out (Shukla) 62
K D Karthik b Lahiri 0
M Shrinivas not out 41.
Extras: (b 3, lb 9, w 10, nb 9) 31
Total: (7 wickets decl, 105 overs, 470 mins) 423
Did not bat: R Jesuraj, VY Mahesh.
Fall of wickets: 1-34, 2-72, 3-76, 4-183, 5-184, 6-310, 7-311.
Bowling: Paul 18-1-95-3 (3nb, 3w), Bose 20-4-79-0 (1w), Ganguly 14-3-32-2, Dinda 18-1-69-0, Lahiri 20-0-98-1 (6nb, 2w), Gavaskar 13-3-34-0, Jhunjhunwala 2-0-4-0.
Bengal (2nd innings): (target: 497 runs)
A Das c Vasudevadas b Jesuraj 1
S Paul c Badrinath b Jesuraj 0
A Jhunjhunwala not out 34
S Lahiri c Mahesh b Jesuraj 39
S Ganguly not out 25.
Extras: (lb 5, nb 5) 10
Total: (3 wickets, 24.1 overs) 109
To bat: R Gavaskar, L Shukla, D Dasgupta, S Paul, R Bose, A Dinda.
Fall of wickets: 1-1, 2-10, 3-51.
Bowling: Jesuraj 8-0-41-3 (1nb), Shrinivas 7-1-37-0 (2nb), Sathish 4.1-2-3-0 (1nb), Mahesh 4-0-23-0 (1nb), Kapoor 1-1-0-0
