Saurashtra maintained their grip over the Ranji Trophy final on day three despite a fighting stand between Bengal veteran Manoj Tiwary and Sudip Chatterjee on a deteriorating pitch in Rajkot yesterday.

Chatterjee (47 not out off 145) and Tiwary (35 off 116) took a leaf out of Cheteshwar Pujara’s book to share a gritty 89-run partnership off 226 balls after Bengal were in a spot of bother at 35 for two at lunch. Batting is only going to get tougher on this surface with the ball keeping low right from day one, making it a steep challenge for Bengal to get past Saurashtra’s first innings total of 425.

Bengal reached 134 for three in 65 overs at close of play, trailing Saurashtra by 291 runs with Chatterjee and Wriddhiman Saha (4 off 43) in the middle.

Saurashtra, who resumed the day at 384 for 8, went on to bat for 1-hour-and-10-minutes in the morning session to add 41 valuable runs with the last wicket pair of Jaydev Unadkat and Dharemendrasinh Jadeja producing 38 runs. On day-2, Pujara and Arpit Vasavada batted together for 5 hours to put Saurashtra in a strong position and Bengal too will have to come up with something special to stay in the game.

While Saurashtra are aiming for their maiden title, Bengal have not won Ranji Trophy since 1989-90.