Shukla failed to keep momentum in the final

Calcutta: The final jinx continued to haunt Bengal as Saurashtra crushed Laxmi Ratan Shukla & Co. by six wickets in the national one-dayers title round in Visakhapatnam on Thursday.

Batting first, Bengal were skittled out for 86 and Saurashtra survived an early scare to reach the target in just 23 overs. By winning the Vijay Hazare Trophy, Saurashtra thus claimed their first major title at the national level.

“We probably paid the price for over-confidence. It’s pretty disappointing that we could not bring all our hard work to the desired end. There was nothing wrong with the wicket. We simply failed to apply ourselves and seize the opportunity when it mattered the most,” Bengal manager Samir Dasgupta said from Visakhapatnam.

“Perhaps we don’t have the champion’s luck,” he added.

Even Sourav Ganguly, currently preparing for the final Test against South Africa in Kanpur, expressed shock over the way Bengal capitulated in the final. “Sourav called me in the evening and got a shock when he was told that we were shot out for 86. His immediate reaction was, ‘oh, my God,’” Dasgupta added.

Nothing went right for Bengal since they decided to make first use of the track.

Mediumpacer Jayesh Odedra broke Bengal’s back in just 20 minutes, reducing them to four for 15.

Sreevats Goswami (4), Anustup Majumdar (2) and Manoj Tiwary (3) all departed within the sixth over and when Shukla tried to blast his way out of the crisis by sending the bowler over mid-on, Odedra induced him to nick behind. It was five for 44 and Bengal’s fairytale journey had turned into a nightmare.

Bengal lost to their back-to-back finals in the Ranji Trophy (to Uttar Pradesh and Mumbai, respectively), before being relegated from the Elite division. On Thursday, in another final, they looked nowhere near their confident best which had saw them through the challenges of Delhi and Mumbai in the quarter final and semi-final, respectively.

Wriddhiman Saha (25 not out) played a lone hand but was left stranded as wickets kept tumbling at the other end. Odedra finished with an impressive figure of 10-1-16-4 while Rakesh Dhurv returned 9-1-23-3.

Saurashtra lost opener Sagar Jogiyani (5) in the second over when Shib Shankar Paul trapped him leg before. Paul also removed captain Jaydev Shah (17) and Chirag Pathak (25) but the target was too small to really worry Saurashtra.