Sourav and Wriddhiman at the Eden on Tuesday. A Telegraph picture

Calcutta: It was a day when two people — one young and the other ‘not so old’ came together to teach a lesson or two on what the word application means.

For Bengal this season, words like patience and application were only meant to be read in the dictionary. On Tuesday, the 25-year-old Wriddhiman Saha and the 37-year-old Sourav Ganguly decided otherwise.

Just when it looked like Bengal were heading for yet another batting collapse on a placid track at the Jadavpur University (JU), Salt Lake campus ground, Wriddhiman and Sourav led a tremendous fightback adding 222 runs for the fifth wicket.

Reduced to 43 for four in just 18 overs, Sourav (110n..) and Wriddhiman (106n..) showed that there was no devil in the pitch. And as a result, Bengal were comfortably placed at 265 for four at the end the first day’s play.

Save the first 30 minutes of their 268-minute undefeated stand, the duo were hardly in any sort of trouble. The JU ground strip is not known for having a good carry. It has always been a batsman’s paradise. The quartet of Arindam Das (4), Rohan Banerjee (5), Dibyendu Chakraborty (18) and Manoj Tiwary (8) will surely feel disappointed having missed out on a run feast.

They can only blame themselves for their indiscretion. Arindam poked at an away going delivery from Pradeep Sangwan and was brilliantly caught by wicket-keeper Puneet Bisht. Banerjee, who looked a bit unsettled by Ishant Sharma’s pace, saw one jump up from short of good length and Bisht took his second catch.

Manoj and Dibyendu will feel unlucky because they batted close to an hour seeing off dangerman Ishant’s first spell. However, when Parvinder Awana came on to bowl, both were guilty of playing loose shots. While Dibyendu was castled by a delivery that kept low, Manoj didn’t reach the line of the delivery and was bowled.

Then it was all about Sourav and Wriddhiman doing the simple things correctly. Wriddhiman was a bit edgy to begin with as he hit a few streaky boundaries. However once the day progressed, he opened up. With an able guide in Sourav, the Bengal glovesman finally got into the groove in an otherwise poor season.

When the spinners were brought on, he was well set and didn’t have any problems in negotiating the mediocre left-arm spin of Vikash Mishra and part-time off-spinner Mithun Manhas. His 206-ball innings consisted of 16 boundaries.

At the other end, neither of the trio of Ishant, Awana and Sangwan could bother Sourav bowling on the off-stump channel. He was prepared to wait for the loose deliveries. He started by driving Awana through covers and then followed it up with shots through the point region.

The former Indian captain knew that Delhi didn’t have spinners or medium pacers to back-up their frontline pacers. Once Delhi skipper Rajat Bhatia introduced Manhas and Mishra, Sourav launched into the latter.

One of the best players of left-arm spin, Sourav hit Mishra for 15 runs in an over which included a square cut, cover drive and a straight six over long that landed out of the ground and the ball got lost in the process. Sourav later added another over boundary to his kitty when he hit Mishra over long-on.

Debutant Mishra (13-1-72-0) was the bowler that the Bengal duo singled out for rough treatment. After matching each other stroke for stroke, Wriddhiman beat his senior partner to the milestone.