Mohun Bagan in commanding position in pink ball contest

Bhowanipore were left struggling at 132/6 in their second innings after Arindam Ghosha's sparkling 225-ball 125 helped Mohun Bagan set a mammoth target of 496 runs in the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) Super League final here on Monday.

Santosh Sabanayakan remained not out on 1, Sujit Kumar Yadav was unbeaten on 5 at stumps on day three. Bhowanipore still need 364 runs to win the contest.

Arindam's ton was the first of its kind against the pink ball on Indian soil and then Bagan pacer Mohammed Shami's brilliant spell had Bhowanipore struggling at 42/2 at one stage as he sent back Abhishek Das (21) and Writtick Chatterjee (1) in quick succession.

But then Parthasarathi Bhattacharjee and Subham Chatterjee got together to stitch together an useful partnership of 42 runs. However, Parthasarathi was hit in the ribs by a Shami bouncer and he had to leave the field for medical attention.

Subham and Udippan Mukherjee thereafter had a brief stand of 29 runs but the former was holed out in the deep shortly after completing his fifty.

Udippan (11), Ayan Bhattacharya(0) and Parthasarathi (40) then departed too leaving Bhowanipore struggling at 132/6.

Earlier, Arindam continued from where he left off on Sunday night. He helped Bagan maintain a healthy scoring rate throughout his stay at the crease. Bagan who were placed at 150/4 overnight started off well with Arindam and Anustup Majumder looking at ease.

After adding 84 runs for the fifth wicket, Anustup departed caught by Abhishek Das off a Sujit Kumar Yadav delivery.

Other notable contributions came from the bat of Sanjib Sanyal (51) and Mohammed Shami (27).

The last man to fall for Bagan was Arindam who was caught at long off by Ravikant Singh but by then they had posted a massive 349.

--IANS

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