Ranji Trophy: Bengal's year of resurgence

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.