da wazamba： The Bengal batsman failed to back up the superlative performance oftheir bowlers against Rajasthan on the second day of their RanjiTrophy Super League Group A encounter at the Eden Gardens on Friday
Sakyasen Mittra25-Feb-2000The Bengal batsman failed to back up the superlative performance oftheir bowlers against Rajasthan on the second day of their RanjiTrophy Super League Group A encounter at the Eden Gardens on Friday.After the hosts had restricted the visitors to 377 runs in the firstinnings, Bengal finished the day at 151 for the loss of fourwickets. Their situation could have been worse if Rajasthan hadaccepted the chances that came their way. As a result of two lives,Devang Gandhi scored a dashing unbeaten 81 and along with SrikantKalyani added 75 runs for the unfinished fifth wicket.Earlier, Rajasthan resuming at their overnight score of 295 for threewickets could only add 82 runs for the loss of the remaining sevenwickets in 45 overs. Skipper Utpal Chatterjee was at his devastatingbest. He had figures of 17.1-8-17-4 today and his overall analysiswas five for 76, his 19th fifth wicket haul in the Ranji Trophy. Hewas ably supported by off spinner Sourashis Chatterjee and mediumpacer Lakshmi Ratan Shukla, both of whom finished with two wicketsapiece.In fact it was Shukla who started the slide by having P.Krishnakumarcaught behind with a delivery that moved away of the seam. The Bengalfielding was also brilliant today with Nikhil Haldipur and AlokenduLahiri picking up two brilliant catches at silly point and forwardshort leg respectively. It was only due to the efforts of Nikhil Doru(45 with seven boundaries) that Rajasthan managed to cross the 350mark.In reply, Bengal were always on the backfoot. However, the two mainbatsman of the team, Haldipur and Rohan Gavaskar committed`hara-kiri’. The former had no right to play a ball wide of the legstump to be caught behind. The junior Gavaskar then needlessly triedto lift off spinner Anshu Jain out of the ground. He was brilliantlycaught by Kuldip Singh at mid on who dived to his left to come up witha one handed catch.It was left to Kalyani and Gandhi to stem the rot. Gandhi, lucky to bedropped twice of Anshu Jain by wicketkeeper R.Jahalani when his scorewas nine and 10 grew in confidence as his innings progressed. Hereached his 50 with a six over mid wicket of leg spinnerP. Jaykumar. He was also severe on all the other bowlers as he hit 11boundaries. However, if Bengal are to manage five points from thistie, Gandhi and Kalyani both have to get big hundreds on Saturday.For the Bengal tail starts after them.