The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Delhi has Bengal on the mat

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Dec 23, 2004

Sport

Sport - Cricket

Delhi has Bengal on the mat

By Our Sports Reporter

KOLKATA, DEC. 22. Delhi pacemen made the most of a grassy and firm pitch to put Bengal in an tight situation on the opening day of the Ranji Trophy Elite Group A match at the Eden Gardens here on Wednesday. Bengal finished the day on 229 for seven, and its first innings appeared to be headed for an early finish.

Left-arm medium pacer Kunal Lal picked up three Bengal wickets. And with Amit Bhandari bowling with purpose from the other end, the host's resistance was cut short.

Captain Ajay Jadeja, bowling his gentle pacers, too found enough purchase to pick up the wicket of his counterpart Rohan Gavaskar, thereby completing the seamers' dominance on the first day. Jadeja's decision to play just one spinner — Rahul Sanghvi — and opt for a pace-heavy bowling, that included Lal, Bhandari and N.S. Negi, was proved right at the end of the day.

Former India wicketkeeper Deep Dasgupta's form deserted him once again as he lasted just nine balls before edging Lal to slips where Gautam Gambhir snared him. Next to leave was debutant Rakesh Krishnan, playing across the line of a Bhandari delivery. The top three Bengal batsmen were back in the pavilion with the score reading 76 as Lal struck again before lunch seeing off opener Arindam Das, who was surprised by the sharpness of the delivery and ended up dragging the ball onto the stumps.

A brief moment of resurrection seemed to raise Bengal's hopes, as captain Rohan Gavaskar joined Subhamoy Das to stem the rot. The two put on an 85-run partnership, pushing the score to 161 before Gavaskar (68, 113b, 4x8) departed declared leg-before to Jadeja. Gavaskar also accomplished a personal landmark as he completed 4,000 Ranji runs.

Das, troubled by a sprained back, retired hurt after a 32-run partnership with Laxmi Ratan Shukla (33) and this sparked off Bengal's agony all over again. Shukla was cleaned up by Bhandari after the other debutant, Manoj Tiwari, was run out by Vijay Dahiya off a measured throw from point by Jadeja.

The host got some reprieve from the Delhi barrage as bad light stopped the day's action early with the tail-enders, Ritam Kundu and Shib Shankar Paul, left to salvage the team's hopes on the second day.

The scores:

Bengal — 1st innings: A. Das b Lal 35, D. Dasgupta c Dhawan b Lal 5, R. Krishnan b Bhandari 13, R. Gavaskar lbw b Jadeja 68, S. Das (retd. hurt) 47, L.R. Shukla b Bhandari 33, M. Tiwari (run out) 8, R. Kundu (batting) 12, M. Lodhgar lbw b Lal 1, S.S. Paul (batting) 0; Extras (lb-3, nb-4): 7. Total (for 7 wkts. in 76.3 overs) 229.

Fall of wickets: 1-12, 2-50, 3-76, 4-161, 5-208, 6-223, 7-228.

Delhi bowling: Bhandari 17.3-2-50-2, Lal 17-4-49-3, Negi 16-0-61-0, Jadeja 9-2-21-1, Sanghvi 11-2-26-0; Bhatia 4-0-14-0, Manhas 2-0-5-0.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport