Little did Manoj Tiwary know that Bengal would have to face such circumstances in this Ranji Trophy final, when he had made bold statements during its build-up.

Those words from the Bengal skipper obviously didn’t go down well with Saurashtra as their fitting response helped them dominate the proceedings in the first two days of the contest at Eden Gardens.

However, the fightback from Bengal did happen on Day III as after their bowlers finally stood up in the morning session, Anustup Majumdar (61) and the captain himself (57 batting) made the opposition bowlers toil and reduced the deficit to 61.

At stumps on Saturday, Bengal were 169/4 in their second essay after Saurashtra’s first innings ended at 404. Hope still floats in the Bengal camp and that’s centred around Tiwary and Shahbaz Ahmed (13 batting), both of whom still have lots of work to do.

Even though they have an Everest to climb, Bengal still believe a turnaround is possible.

But for that to happen, Tiwary and Shahbaz need to stitch a really long partnership in order to put the pressure back on Saurashtra.

The job isn’t easy at all as the likes of Jaydev Unadkat (2/47), Chetan Sakariya (2/50) and Prerak Mankad will be coming back fresher on Sunday and have the opportunity of exploting the early morning conditions.

For a good part of Saturday, they bowled a probing line that beat Majumdar and Tiwary even when both batsmen were well set. In other words, the Saurashtra quicks have been able to show how to bowl on such a pitch, where their Bengal counterparts were expected to rock and make it a “one-sided final”.

Bengal were breathing easier during the century-plus stand between Majumdar and Tiwary. Both of them were solid in defence and also ensured to capitalise on the scoring opportunities.

But just when Saurashtra needed a breakthrough, captain Unadkat produced the sucker ball to which, Majumdar committed a bit early and perished at gully.

Saurashtra’s job remains unfinished till they get rid of Tiwary, who’s looking sharp just like the Tiwary of the old. It’s still not known if this would be the final innings of his first-class career. But he does look determined to make yet another statement, this time with the bat.