Ranji Trophy: Bengal's year of resurgence

Unlike any other city in India, Mumbai will be forever known for its cricketing might. There is something rather extraordinary about the Mumbai cricketing culture, that year after year, it churns out exceptional cricketing talent. Historian and cricket writer, Ramachandra Guha once wrote about how Bombay’s All-time XI could walk into any Indian cricket team on any given day.

And rightly so, Sunil Gavaskar, Vijay Merchant, Dilip Vengsarkar, the Sachin Tendulkar & Vijay Manjrekar, aren’t small names. Much before the likes of Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane burst into the scene, these very gentlemen hoisted the flag of the Bombay school of batsmanship.

Talk about bowling – think about the wily Ajit Agarkar or the tiny Ramakant Desai, who was unusually fast for a bowler of his size. In fact, Mumbai’s Subhas Gupte in his prime could even give Shane Warne a run for his money, with his leg-spin.

Ex-India captain, Sourav Ganguly (third from left) happens to be Bengal’s greatest gift to Indian cricket

While Mumbai’s might will forever feature in the annals of Indian cricket’s history, the eastern state of Bengal’s contribution to the sport largely goes unrecognized, overshadowed by the dominance of Football – a game that still runs in the veins of the every Bengali. This state that produced Pankaj Roy and Sourav Ganguly also happens to be home to Asia’s “Mecca of Cricket”, the Eden Gardens. And it is not very far from the Eden that Bengal’s budding cricketers hone their skills in the lush expanses of the maidan.

This year, the maidan was set alive by a buzz on the first day of the New Year. Bengal’s Ranji team was facing Tamil Nadu in a do-or-die game, down south, in the dustbowls of Chennai. Both teams had to win this game to avoid being knocked out and had to pray for other results to go their way. News started trickling in that Tamil Nadu were cruising at 110/1, needing 75 more runs to win. Dinesh Karthik had already scored a half century and had the domestic war-horse, S Badrinath at the other end. But then something unexpected happened – Badrinath fell leg-before to the off spin of Lahiri. 15 runs later, Karthik fell for 62. And in 18 overs time, Tamil Nadu were reeling at 158/9, desperately trying to reach out to those 17 runs, while Bengal seemed to have them by the throat.

Between Karthik’s wicket and that of Rahil Shah, Bengal’s Lahiri had produced a gem. Using Chepauk’s grossly underprepared track to his advantage, this 90 odd game veteran, bagged as many as seven wickets to break the backbone of the Tamil Nadu batting. But the game wasn’t over yet, as the last pair added 12 runs to take their team excruciatingly close to the target before Writtick Chatterjee caught the last man, Malolan Rangarajan, plumb in front.

As the close-in fielders leapt in joy and others ran in to collect the stumps as souvenirs, the added delight could not be missed. In a simultaneous match, Baroda were on the verge of losing to Rajasthan, and the additional six points for Bengal meant a place in the quarter finals after a rather disappointing 2012/13 season. The feat had been achieved despite the absence of three of its top players: Manoj Tiwary due to injury, Wriddhiman Saha and Mohammad Shami due to national duty.

Here was a young team, ably led by Laxmi Ratan Shukla, dismissing the strong TN line-up once for 85 and once for 180, in conditions that were very different from the slow-low bounce of the Eden wicket that they were used to, back in Kolkata. Congratulatory messages started pouring in for the team and interest in domestic matches was revived thanks to this nail-biting finish, but deep down, each player in the Bengal set up will be heaving a sigh of relief for being able to get this monkey off their back.

In the season preceding the current one, Bengal came a below par seventh in the round-robin and were badly affected by national call-ups and injuries to their key players. So this time around, a complete overhaul was in place. Wriddhiman Saha who happens to be India’s back up keeper in Tests, relinquished the captaincy in favour of Shukla who would have a sure shot chance of playing all the games. After coach, Wookery Raman resigned, the more local, Ashok Malhotra was brought in to provide direction to the hurting team.

Pre-season camps were in place, infrastructural changes were taking place in the Cricket Association of Bengal, with a focus on developing the game at the club-level. An informal conversation of mine with Joydeep Mukherjee, the coach of the Bengal ‘A’ team revealed that under Sourav Ganguly’s leadership, CAB’s Cricket Committee was devising ways in which more and more youngsters could play against the senior Bengal team players at the state’s 1^st Division level. While Mukherjee seemed optimistic about Bengal’s future in the domestic circuit, he also reiterated what I mentioned at the beginning of this article that Mumbai’s club-level cricket churned out far better domestic performers than the club tournaments in any other part of the country.

Bengal has been unfortunate of having made it to the finals of the Ranji Trophy as many as thirteen times, winning just two of those encounters in 1989-90 season and 1938-39 season. The last time Bengal played in the final of the Ranji Trophy was way back in 2006/07 with that match being much remembered for the presence of India’s two greatest batting stalwarts – Sourav Ganguly and Sachin Tendulkar on either side.

Bengal’s Ashok Dinda has picked up 29 wickets in the ongoing season of Ranji Trophy

This year’s feat of reaching the quarters has been achieved due to some quality leadership shown by Shukla, who has not only led well but also delivered with the bat – notching up 491 runs as the leading run scorer of the side. In the batting front, opener Arindam Das has contributed valiantly with 446 runs and two centuries. But the credit must also go to the bowlers, especially Ashok Dinda, who picked up 29 important wickets for his side that included a fantastic 7-wicket haul against Uttar Pradesh in Kolkata.

Shukla’s boys now head into the toughest phase of the competition where one bad game can end their tournament. While they prepare for their quarter-final against Railways, a lot would be already on their mind. Railways’ captain, Murali Kartik had got into a fracas with the Bengal team over his mankading of Sandipan Das, a couple of weeks back and tensions escalated to such an extent that the Bengal players refused to engage in the customary post-match handshake with the Railways team.

Come 8^th January, and one can expect a lot of heated exchanges when the two teams meet. Being table toppers, Railways would be confident of another win but it is likely that Bengal will be getting reinforcement in the form of a raring-to-go Mohammad Shami and the dependable Wriddhiman Saha, both of whom have returned from national duty. Manoj Tiwary too, has been added as the 17th member in the squad and will be most likely to feature in the Playing XI, once he gets a fitness clearance from the National Cricket Academy. In all likelihood, thanks to the grit that has been displayed by Bengal’s younger players – 2012/13 might just mark a new chapter in Bengal cricket. It might just turn out to be the year of resurgence for a very old Cricket playing state in our country. Till then, it’s over to Kolkata.