da supremo： Rajasthan, taking advantage of a weak Bengal attack, poor fielding andinept captaincy reached 295 for the loss of three wickets on theopening day of their Ranji Trophy Super league Group A encounter atthe Eden Gardens on Thursday
Sakyasen Mittra24-Feb-2000Rajasthan, taking advantage of a weak Bengal attack, poor fielding andinept captaincy reached 295 for the loss of three wickets on theopening day of their Ranji Trophy Super league Group A encounter atthe Eden Gardens on Thursday. Bad light stopped play 17 balls and 11minutes before the scheduled close.Centuries by opener Anshu Jain and one drop Rahul Kanwath and their254-run stand for the second wicket helped the visitors to take a firmgrip. However, both batsmen will have to thank the fielders forgetting their centuries. Kanwath offered three chances while goingfrom 93 to 97 of 24 deliveries. All were mistimed pull shots. On twooccasions the bowler was Lakshmi Ratan Shukla and on the third it wasSumit Panda. Alokendu Lahiri at deep square leg was guilty of startinglate on two occasions. Then Wrichik Mazumdar dropped the batsman whenhe pulled Panda down his throat. The chances which came in the postlunch session could have bought Bengal well back into the match.On the other hand, Jain was distinctly lucky to see Srikanth Kalyaniat first slip failing to react to his attempted cut shot off RohanGavaskar’s bowling. The batsman then was on 94. He ultimately got hishundred cutting Chatterjee to the point fence.As far as the bowling was concerned, it was quite ordinary, save forUtpal Chatterjee and Shukla. The latter gave the first breakthrough,having Gagan Khoda caught by Haldipur at slip. But after that it was along haul in the field. Kanwath was finally out in the sixth overafter tea attempting to drive leg spinner Mazumdar. He failed to getto the pitch of the ball and the edge was taken at slip byChatterjee. Then Jain trying to sweep Chatterjee was caught bat-pad atslip by Gavaskar. These two wickets revived some hopes forBengal. Kanwath in his innings of 143 had 22 boundaries of 186deliveries. The more circumspect Jain, in his innings of 115 of 266deliveries had 15 boundaries.The match, however, emphasized one fact. Without Saurav Ganguly, thisBengal team is a very ordinary side.