Bengal fall just short of their target
Bengal came close to snatching an improbable win against Delhi on the last day of the Ranji Trophy Super League tie against Delhi at the Eden Gardens on Saturday
Sakyasen Mittra
19-Feb-2000
Bengal came close to snatching an improbable win against Delhi on the
last day of the Ranji Trophy Super League tie against Delhi at the
Eden Gardens on Saturday.
Needing 124 runs for an win in 13 overs, Bengal finally managed to get
82 for four wickets when the captains decided to call off
play. Earlier, Delhi, in the face of some inspired bowling by Saurav
Ganguly and Utpal Chatterjee, scored 261 in their second
innings. Ganguly finished with five wickets and Chatterjee with
four. But sans the two, the Bengal bowling looked ordinary. Had the
others backed up Ganguly and Chatterjee to even some extent, Bengal
would have finished with eight points. As it is, they had five for the
first innings lead while Delhi finished with three.
Delhi were saved by a eighth wicket stand between Rahul Sanghvi and
Nikhil Chopra. They added 59 runs, but more importantly they made the
runs off 160 balls. Sanghvi however had two lives. When on seven,
Saba Karim dropped a difficult chance of the bowling of Laxmi Ratan
Shukla and then four runs later he was dropped by Chatterjee at
point. The hapless bowler again was Shukla.
The match once more established Ganguly's prowess as captain. He led
from the front and struck vital blows at the right moment to have
Delhi under pressure. He changed his bowlers at regular intervals.
The only blemish on his part was to use leg spinner Wrichik Mazumdar
for only one over during the day. The manner in which he once more
outwitted the rival captain Ajay Sharma was great to watch. Sharma, a
compulsive puller and hooker, had fallen to Ganguly in the first
innings in the square leg trap. This time, the moment, Sharma walked
in, Ganguly had a man two-thirds of the way to the fence. However,
with Sharma expecting a bouncer, Ganguly bowled him the perfect
outswinger. Sharma, rooted to the backfoot, played away from his body,
to be caught behind.
Then again, while chasing, Ganguly came out to open the innings. Such
committment, is unusual amongst the current National players these
days. He failed in his attempt, but his positive approach was enough
to draw 15,000 spectators to watch a Ranji Trophy game.
At lunch, Delhi were 144 for five and Bengal were smelling a
victory. But then Chopra and Sanghvi and later a last wicket stand
between Robin Singh (jr) and Mithun Minhas, thwarted their
attempts. Delhi were indebted to Mithun Minhas (46, 75m, 57b, 5x4,
1x6), Nikhil Chopra (39, 86m, 76b, 5x4) and Sanghvi 20 (100m, 64b,
3x4) for saving the match.
An asking rate of virtually 10 an over was always going to be
difficult. And once, Ganguly left, bowled by Sanjay Gill for 17, the
result was a foregone conclusion. Devang Gandhi tried his
best. However, he was out to a brilliant one handed catch by Akash
Chopra at long on of Gill for 28 of 27 balls.