Indian team's monster 16-hour innings draws match

An Indian cricket team has demoralised their opponents by batting out nearly 16 hours to draw a five-day match on a dead wicket.

Bengal met reigning Ranji Trophy champions Gujarat in the quarter-final stage of the competition over the weekend.

Sent in to bat by Gujarat, Bengal batted through to day two before being dismissed for 354 behind Abhimanyu Easwaran's 124 and Anustup Majumdar's 94.

Their position improved markedly on the second day -- Bengal had Gujarat 6-180 at stumps, and a first-innings lead would give them a crucial leg-up in the case of a draw.

And so it proved.

Bengal got to work after Gujarat added just 44 runs for their final four wickets early on day three.

Having taken just one wicket and watched their opponents build a lead of 307 at stumps, Gujarat coach Vijay Patel was clearly downcast.

"Somewhere we already knew," he said, via the Ahmedabad Mirror.

"There is nothing much for the bowlers in the wicket. This is a simple dead wicket, a batting paradise which beats even the one at Rajkot.

"But we thought maybe few wickets in the first two sessions could help us back in the game."

With the pitch doing nothing and a semi-final berth booked, Bengal went on for two more days to rest their bowling attack before the next match.

Easwaran made 114 runs, his dual centuries earning him man of the match honours, while Writtick Chatterjee feasted for 216 runs in a whopping 536-minute innings.

Skipper Manoj Tiwary lasted 218 minutes for his 59 runs, scoring at a strike rate of just 33.33, and Majumdar improved on his first-innings 94 with an unbeaten 132 in 250 minutes before the close of play.

Gujarat were so concerned with overworking their bowlers -- even in the last red-ball match of the season -- that right-arm offspinner Rujul Bhatt sent down 70 overs, 66 more than he did in the first innings.