Calcutta: For Team Bengal, winning has almost become a habit, as far as the limited-overs formats are concerned. Keeping that in mind, it will not be unusual to expect that Saturday’s loss, in the form of Sourav Ganguly, will not affect the winning momentum of the team.
On the eve of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy quarter final match against Baroda, at the Bandra-Kurla Complex ground in Mumbai, Bengal are thus a confident unit.
Basking in the afterglow of the Vijay Hazare Trophy triumph, the team have every reason to believe that they are the favourites, not just for Sunday, but for the title itself.
Coming back to the ‘loss’ bit, captain Sourav was ruled out of the Baroda tie (and most probably for the rest of the meet if Bengal advance) with a hamstring injury which he picked up while representing the Marylebone Cricket Club in an Emirates Airline Twenty20 match, in Dubai, on Friday.
The former India captain, who was to join the team in Mumbai, has come back to Calcutta and Manoj Tiwary will lead the side in his absence.
Shifting our focus to Manoj, who has travelled with the Indian team for the past few months and has been unjustly restricted to the 12th man’s role, the national T20s will be the ideal platform to make a point or two.
The frustration and disappointment of sitting on the bench when those on the ground are not at all at their best may be erased by a super knock.
And if you think that sudden captaincy will be a burden for Bengal’s most prolific run-scorer, you are wrong. “I wouldn’t be doing it for the first time… I have captained Bengal in the past and on most occasions, the team have done well under my leadership. So Sunday will certainly not present an unknown situation,” Manoj said.
So captaincy is not a hurdle. But fatigue? That should surely be a factor, you would think. Sorry, but according to Manoj, you are again wrong. “We are professionals and these days cricket is played all round the year… We are used to it. That will not be a problem,” Manoj said.
But even if captaincy and fatigue do not have enough ammunition to hurt the stylish right-hander’s confidence, where will he get the motivation from after a gruelling four months of no match-practice? “From the cap,” is Manoj’s prompt reply.
“Be it the India cap or the Bengal cap, the moment you put it on, you are motivated to give your best for the team… Why would you need to motivate yourself in any other way?” Manoj questioned.
With such a confident captain at the helm, Baroda is not at all a tall order for Bengal, inspite of the towering Yusuf Pathan’s presence in the opposition ranks. True that Baroda got the better of the formidable Karnataka in their pre-quarter final tie, but the fact is Bengal have a better team than Karnataka.
On the team front, the XI which outclassed Mumbai in the Vijay Hazare final is likely to be retained with two changes, Tiwary and Ashok Dinda coming in for Sourav and Sourav Sarkar, respectively.
