Bengal Sports Minister Manoj Tiwari on Friday achieved a feat that no one else could do in the Ranji Trophy in 88 years, becoming the first player to score a century as the state’s sports minister. Bengal made it to the semi-finals on the basis of a huge first innings lead against Jharkhand. The fifth day’s play was just a formality in which Tiwary scored 136 runs.
Along with signing the files related to his field, Tiwary displayed his batting skills on the field, hitting 19 fours and two sixes in his innings. Shahbaz Ahmed scored 46, Anustup Majumdar scored 38 and Abhishek Porel scored 34 runs. All three had scored big scores in the first innings as well. In the one-sided quarter-finals, Bengal scored 773 for seven in the first innings and nine of its batsmen scored half-centuries to set a new record in the 250-year history of first-class cricket.
Shahbaz Nadeem took five wickets for 59 runs for Jharkhand. In the first innings, Virat Singh scored 136 runs. Bengal will face Madhya Pradesh in the semi-finals. In the second semi-final, Mumbai will face Uttar Pradesh. Both the matches will be played from June 14. The 36-year-old former Bengal captain had joined the TMC ahead of the assembly elections. He had won from Shibpur constituency in 2021 by defeating Rathin Chakraborty of BJP.
Manoj is currently the Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs in the Government of West Bengal led by Mamata Banerjee. Earlier in 2021, he was included in the 21-man Bengal squad for the Ranji Trophy before the tournament was postponed. He was a part of Bengal’s Ranji Trophy final against Saurashtra in 2020.
Tiwary had earlier played in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2021. He played international cricket for India for his last time in 2015. He played 12 ODIs and 3 T20Is for Team India. Tiwary has played 125 first-class matches and 163 List A matches, scoring over 14000 runs in domestic cricket.