Sudip Gharami and Abishek Porel had excellent opportunities to make an impression before national selector RP Singh at Eden Gardens on Saturday. But both of them failed to convert their fluent fifties into big scores, as Bengal find themselves in a spot of bother against Gujarat in their second Ranji Trophy clash.
Sumanta Gupta (58 batting), steady again for a second consecutive half-century, and Akash Deep (9 batting) were at the crease when insufficient light forced early stumps on Day I with Bengal on 244/7.
Put into bat, Bengal lost captain Abhimanyu Easwaran with not too many on the board after his opening partner Sudip Chatterjee departed early off medium-pacer Chintan Gaja. Easwaran gave himself time to settle down before a delivery shaping in from Gaja kept a bit low and trapped him LBW.
Gharami, though, was almost effortless in his strokeplay at the other end, bringing up his half-century with a wonderful cover drive. But all of a sudden, he charged down the track off the bowling of left-arm spinner Siddharth Desai, missed the line of the ball completely, and saw his stumps rattled.
That happened soon after Lunch, and Gujarat, playing without leg-spinner Ravi Bishnoi, had Bengal wobbling at 95/4, with the hosts’ senior-most batter Anustup Majumdar, too, back in the pavilion without scoring.
Porel then found a steady partner in Sumanta and cashed in on anything that fell in his arc. Nine crisp boundaries helped him to his fifty off just 53 balls. In the next 17 balls he faced, the Bengal vice-captain added just a single. That probably made him a tad impatient as he tried to sweep a Desai delivery from outside the off-stump and was given out caught behind.
The Bengal camp feels Porel hadn’t edged it, but it was a shot that he could easily have avoided, especially after having done all the hard work. Head coach Laxmi Ratan Shukla, it was learnt later, spoke to Gharami and Porel about their shot selection and inability to convert their half-centuries into a hundred.
Brief scores: Bengal 244/7 (Sumanta Gupta 58 batting, Sudip Gharami 56, Abishek Porel 51; Siddharth Desai 3/55) vs Gujarat. At Stumps, Day I.