Bengal batsmen fail to back bowlers

The Bengal batsman failed to back up the superlative performance of their bowlers against Rajasthan on the second day of their Ranji Trophy Super League Group A encounter at the Eden Gardens on Friday. After the hosts had restricted the visitors to 377 runs in the first innings, Bengal finished the day at 151 for the loss of four wickets. Their situation could have been worse if Rajasthan had accepted the chances that came their way. As a result of two lives, Devang Gandhi scored a dashing unbeaten 81 and along with Srikant Kalyani added 75 runs for the unfinished fifth wicket.

Earlier, Rajasthan resuming at their overnight score of 295 for three wickets could only add 82 runs for the loss of the remaining seven wickets in 45 overs. Skipper Utpal Chatterjee was at his devastating best. He had figures of 17.1-8-17-4 today and his overall analysis was five for 76, his 19th fifth wicket haul in the Ranji Trophy. He was ably supported by off spinner Sourashis Chatterjee and medium pacer Lakshmi Ratan Shukla, both of whom finished with two wickets apiece.

In fact it was Shukla who started the slide by having P.Krishnakumar caught behind with a delivery that moved away of the seam. The Bengal fielding was also brilliant today with Nikhil Haldipur and Alokendu Lahiri picking up two brilliant catches at silly point and forward short leg respectively. It was only due to the efforts of Nikhil Doru (45 with seven boundaries) that Rajasthan managed to cross the 350 mark.

In reply, Bengal were always on the backfoot. However, the two main batsman of the team, Haldipur and Rohan Gavaskar committed `hara-kiri'. The former had no right to play a ball wide of the leg stump to be caught behind. The junior Gavaskar then needlessly tried to lift off spinner Anshu Jain out of the ground. He was brilliantly caught by Kuldip Singh at mid on who dived to his left to come up with a one handed catch.

It was left to Kalyani and Gandhi to stem the rot. Gandhi, lucky to be dropped twice of Anshu Jain by wicketkeeper R.Jahalani when his score was nine and 10 grew in confidence as his innings progressed. He reached his 50 with a six over mid wicket of leg spinner P. Jaykumar. He was also severe on all the other bowlers as he hit 11 boundaries. However, if Bengal are to manage five points from this tie, Gandhi and Kalyani both have to get big hundreds on Saturday. For the Bengal tail starts after them.