Bengal seek turnaround from new leadership

Bengal

by Deivarayan Muthu

Where they finished last season
Second from the bottom in Group A with no wins. Bengal barely managed to avoid relegation, thanks to Wriddhiman Saha's resolute 92 in their final game of the season against Madhya Pradesh.

Big Picture
The last time Bengal secured the Ranji title was when Sourav Ganguly made his first-class debut in the final in 1989-90. In the silver-jubilee year of the landmark, Dada has taken charge of the Cricket Association of Bengal.

The previous season, which came after a creditable semi-final finish in 2013-14, was a big low. Chhota Dada Manoj Tiwary, who has been entrusted with captaincy again, will be keen to spark a turnaround. Bengal have been bolstered by the arrival of Pragyan Ojha, who had impressed in the A games against Australia after having remodeled his action.

"Murali sir [Muttiah Muralitharan] told me to keep things simple and keep bowling. He is as an inspiration... he just told me to keep bowling to improve myself. It is a simple message, yet very powerful," Ojha told ESPNcricinfo.

He will head up a revamped spin department, which includes former U-19 offspinner Aamir Gani with usual suspects Ashok Dinda and Veer Pratap Singh manning the pace attack.

Naved Ahmed, who has played club cricket in West Bengal for close to a decade, gets a break. He is among the four uncapped players in the squad at first-class level.

After making two half-centuries in the first two Tests in Sri Lanka, Saha missed the third because of a hamstring injury. But he has recovered and with Naman Ojha breathing down his neck, Saha will look to sharpen both his fitness and form ahead of the home Test series against South Africa.

Players to watch
Pragyan Ojha
One of the most high-profile transfers of the season. Ojha, who has moved from Hyderabad, lends experience and variety to an attack, which looks well-rounded now, at least on paper.

Coaching staff
Former India legspinner Sairaj Bahutule has replaced Ashok Malhotra as head coach. There had been reports of friction in the side during the pre-season tour to Sri Lanka, after which Laxmi Shukla decided to step down from the captaincy. It will be interesting to see how Bahutule builds the team.

Sairaj Bahutule (head coach), Kamalesh Jain (physio), Goutam Deb (trainer), Gautam Sarkar (video analyst), Ranadeb Bose (bowling coach), Joydeep Mukherjee (fielding coach), VVS Laxman (batting consultant), Muttiah Muralitharan (spin consultant)

Preparation
The Bengal set-up toured Sri Lanka for a fortnight, where they played against the Sri Lanka development and academy squads.

Team news
Saurasish Lahiri, who captained Bengal in the Buchi Babu tournament in August, is a notable absentee. An offspinner who can bat a bit lower down the order, Lahiri had sealed Bengal's passage to the Ranji knockouts in 2013-14 with a seven-for against Tamil Nadu.

Squad
Manoj Tiwary (capt), Parthasarathi Bhattacharjee, Abhishek Das, Aamir Gani, Naved Ahmed, Veer Pratap Singh, Sourav Sarkar, Laxmi Shukla, Mukesh Kumar, Sudip Chatterjee, Ashok Dinda, Pragyan Ojha, Shreevats Goswami, Wriddhiman Saha, Pankaj Shaw

In their own words
"We want to have a positive mindset and take it one game at a time. Ojha has been bowling well, he is working really hard, and that helps our bowling attack."
Coach Sairaj Bahutule

Gujarat

by Karthik Krishnaswamy

Where they finished last season
Fourth in Group B

Big picture
Last season, mere decimal points separated Gujarat from a place in the knockouts. Vidarbha, who qualified in third place from Group B, finished with 24 points and a quotient of 1.468. Gujarat finished with 24 points and a quotient of 0.965.

For Gujarat, it was a reflection of all the missed opportunities over the course of a season that was equally encouraging and frustrating - Rajasthan held on for a draw against them, with two wickets remaining; Punjab and Maharashtra escaped with draws despite being made to follow-on; Vidarbha beat them after conceding a first-innings lead.

As a new season begins, Gujarat will have the same question to answer: do they have the quality, individually and as a collective, to make those crunch moments count and step up from mid-table to challenge for knockout spots?

Perhaps it was this question that prompted them to sign-up RP Singh, who will lead a pace attack that looks potent on paper with Rush Kalaria and Jasprit Bumrah. Axar Patel will miss the beginning of the season while he is away with India's limited-overs side, but the team will not lack in the spin department, with coach Hitesh Majumdar indicating that Hardik Patel is a capable like-for-like option as a left-arm spinner. The squad also contains the veteran offspinner Ramesh Powar.

"We've got a very good bowling side," Majumdar says. "Teams will think twice about preparing bowling-friendly wickets against us."

On the batting front, Gujarat might need someone to step up and have a genuinely outstanding season, unlike last season. Six of their batsmen scored one century each, and only one of them went on to make 150. Majumdar recognises the issue, and says he wants his batsmen to show a greater appetite for runs. "Those who are getting 400-500 runs in a season, we need them to stretch it to 700 or 800."

Players to watch
After two stellar Ranji Trophy seasons, Manpreet Juneja found a place in the India A side, and showed he belonged with scores of 193, 84 and 70 against New Zealand A and West Indies A in September 2013. Just when he should have been pushing on for bigger things, his domestic form plummeted - he made 100 runs in nine innings, at an average of 11.11, in the 2013-14 Ranji season, and played only four matches in 2014-15, scoring 137 runs at 27.40. Despite that, he averages over 50 in first-class cricket, and Gujarat will hope he has rediscovered his best form ahead of the new season.

Having missed out on the whole of the 2014-15 Ranji season with a knee injury, Jasprit Bumrah will be raring to return to long-form cricket for the first time since July 2014, when he was part of the India A side touring Australia. Bumrah is tall and asks questions with his angle, bounce and awkward action. If he's fit and firing alongside RP Singh and Kalaria, Gujarat might have a more-than-handy pace attack this season.

Coaching staff
Hitesh Majumdar (coach), Soham Desai (trainer), Parthav Patel (physio), Vijay Patel (coach in charge of overseeing senior and age-group teams).

Preparation
In the pre-season, Gujarat sent teams to the KSCA tournament in Karnataka, the Buchi Babu tournament in Chennai and the Bhausaheb Nimbalkar tournament in Pune. Coach Hitesh Majumdar says rotating their squad gave the selectors a chance to test out a number of players.

Squad
Parthiv Patel (capt & wk), Mehul Patel, Rohit Dahiya, Priyank Panchal, Rujul Bhatt, Jasprit Bumrah, Samit Gohel, Manpreet Juneja, Rush Kalaria, Bhargav Merai, Hardik Patel, Niraj Patel, Smit Patel, Ramesh Powar, RP Singh, Venugopal Rao.

In their own words
"We have been playing with the same group of players for the last three years, and they have gelled well. This time we are expecting results. We just need to cross that line."
Coach Hitesh Majumdar