A few minutes after stumps on Wednesday, Abhimanyu Easwaran was seen leaving Eden Gardens. Obviously, the Bengal captain wasn’t in the mood, especially after perishing off the very first ball of the innings.
His team, though, may not be too disappointed with the proceedings on Day I of their Ranji Trophy opener against Uttarakhand. Although Bengal didn’t finish the day in the best manner possible — 8/1 at stumps — the bowlers did a somewhat decent job in restricting Uttarakhand to 213 after putting the visitors in.
With Bengal going in with a four-pronged pace attack, the focus was more on Test-experienced Mohammed Shami and Akash Deep. But the ones who helped Bengal gain the upper hand were quicks Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal (4/54) and Ishan Porel (3/40).
One expected a much more fiery Shami, especially after his bouncer to chief selector Ajit Agarkar on the eve of
the game. The 35-year-old (3/37) did finish with three wickets, but it took him five spells to get those.
The ball was already 72 overs old, and the bit of reverse swing Shami could extract was a little too much to deal with for the Uttarakhand lower order. In five balls, Shami struck thrice, dismantling the stumps of Janmejay Joshi and Devendra Singh Bora while having Rajan Kumar caught behind.
However, with the wicket having a little bit of moisture in the morning, one had certainly expected Shami to be a little sharper and more lethal, which wasn’t to be.
As for Akash, he looked the least penetrative among the four Bengal pacers, going wicketless in his 16 overs and conceding 53 runs.
In all fairness, Suraj and Ishan bowled better lines in comparison to Shami and Akash. Suraj may not be too fast, but he tried to keep attacking the stumps consistently. Ishan, on the other hand, tried to keep hitting the off-stump line.
“We should’ve bowled better in the first hour. Nonetheless, tomorrow (Thursday) morning will be another important session,” head coach Laxmi Ratan Shukla said.
Brief scores: Uttarakhand 213 (Bhupen Lalwani 71; Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal 4/54, Md Shami 3/37, Ishan Porel 3/40) vs Bengal 8/1.
At stumps, Day I.