Watch: Against Bihar at the Ranji Trophy, Mukesh Kumar registered his career-best innings figures and match figures.

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Mukesh Kumar was rewarded with years of toil in domestic cricket with a Test cap at Port of Spain in 2023. He impressed with match figures of 23-10-53-2.

Despite the absence of his Bengal senior Mohammed Shami, he was left out at Centurion in favour of the taller, quicker Prasidh Krishna. However, he was picked at Cape Town, and played a part in India’s win with 22-4-56-4.

After he was also picked in place of Mohammed Siraj at Visakhapatnam, he returned 12-1-70-0 on a surface that offered little to his medium-pace bowling, and was released by the India selectors to play domestic cricket.

He returned for Bengal’s last match of the season, against Bihar at the Eden Gardens, and claimed 4-18 to rout the tourists for 95. His new-ball partner Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal returned 4-47 as well.

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Bengal responded with 411-5, and Manoj Tiwary declared the innings closed as soon as Abhimanyu Easwaran brought up his double ton. Playing in the last match of his illustrious career, Tiwary made 30. He finished with 10,195 runs in the format, at 47.86.

Mukesh then took out the Bihar top four in his first spell. He trapped Piyush Singh leg-before with his second ball; had Rishav Raj and Raghuvendra Pratap Singh caught behind with two inswingers; and clean bowled Mangal Mahrour with a peach to leave Bihar reeling at 37-4.

They recovered to 110-7 when Mukesh bowled Paramjeet Singh and Ravi Shankar in the same over to finish with career-best figures of 6-32 and his maiden ten-wicket haul, 10-50, in first-class cricket.

With Jaiswal also claiming 4-34, Bihar slumped to 112 to lose by an innings and 204 runs. Their match aggregate of 196 was four runs fewer than Easwaran’s score.

Watch Mukesh Kumar rout Bihar with 6-32 in the Ranji Trophy:

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Bengal Mukesh KumarRanji TrophyRanji Trophy 2023/24Series Editorial