Vijay Hazare Trophy : Bengal shown the exit by Madhya Pradesh

Manoj-with-Laxmi-and-DindaRajkot , December 17 : Bengal bowed out of the Vijay Hazare Trophy following their 5 wicket loss against Madhya Pradesh at Rajkot on Thursday . Madhya Pradesh captain Naman Ojha won the toss and sent Bengal in to bat . Bengal were given a sound start by openers Sayan Sekhar Mondal and Abhimanyu Iswaran as they put on 106 runs for the opening wicket . Sayan was the top scorer for his side scoring 88 runs . He was ably supported by Abhimanyu Iswaran who replaced Sreevats Goswami . Iswaran scored 45 runs . India keeper Wridhiman Saha coming in a No 3 failed with the bat again , scoring just 18 runs . Captain Manoj Tiwary too did not stay long at the crease , returning after scoring just 3 runs , leaving Bengal struggling at 148/3 . Laxmi Ratan Shukla continued his bad run  with the bat scoring just 10 runs . Sudip Chatterjee’s 31 runs and  Pankaj Shaw’s quickfire 28 runs helped Bengal post 262 runs in 50 overs . Chandrakant Sakure , Puneet Date and Jalaj Saxena chipped in with two wickets each for Madhya Pradesh . In reply Madhya Pradesh did not have the greatest of starts as Jalaj Saxena and Naman Ojha were snapped up by Md Shami and Ashoke Dinda leaving the score at 7/2 . Opener Rajat Patidar and Harpreet Singh Bhatia put on 135 runs for the third wicket to restore parity . Rajat scored 63 runs and Bhatia top scored with 71 runs . Anand Singh Bais 54* and Parth Sahani * took Madhya Pradesh to a convincing 5 wicket win with 19 balls to spare . Madhya Pradesh with the win today are No 3 in the table while Manoj Tiwary and his team will be playing their last match tomorrow against Sourashtra . Bengal owe their poor run to the dismal performance from the senior pros Manoj Tiwary ( 102 runs in 4 matches) , Wridhiman Saha ( 49 runs in 4 matches ) and Laxmi Ratan Shukla (57 runs in 4 matches ) who have all failed with the bat . Pragyan Ojha who was in super form in Ranji Trophy also failed with the ball as he picked only 3 wickets in the tournament .