Pacers Mohammed Shami and Ashok Dinda shared seven wickets between them to trigger a collapse that saw Bengal beat Tamil Nadu by 77 runs and storm into the semifinals of the Vijay Hazare one-day cricket tournament at the floodlit Eden Gardens here today.
Defending a paltry 168, Shami (4/25) and Dinda (3/13) ripped apart Tamil Nadu top order with some charged up bowling to reduce the visitors to 25 for five in the 10th over and eventually bundle out Tamil Nadu for 90 in 33.5 overs.
Dinda gave the Bengal their first breakthrough by seeing off S Anirudha, who edged to second slip. Shami then joined the party with wickets of Baba Aparajith (12) and Subramaniam Badrinath (0) in successive overs. He took a spectacular running catch off his own bowling to dismiss Badrinath.
There was no respite for the star studded Tamil Nadu top order batsmen with the pace duo bowling in tandem for 13 overs. They also accounted for the prized wickets of Dinesh Karthik (5), Ravichandran Ashwin (0) and Vijay Shankar (6).
The duo bowled with sheer pace and swing. Shami's first spell read 6-0-13-3, while Dinda was more dreadful with figures of 7-3-12-2.
Presence of 3,000-odd boisterous crowd just added to the intensity as Bengal had it easy in the end.
Murali Vijay was the lone Tamil Nadu batsmen who batted with patience before Veer Pratap Singh ended his stay at the wicket for 24 off 85 balls after Sayan Sekhar Mondal took a fine catch at deep fine leg.
With wickets falling in at the other end, Vijay looked frustrated and went for a big heave to clear the ropes but only to lose his wicket.
