The situation called for Mohammed Shami to produce something special. And the senior pacer made sure he responded.
The 35-year-old finished with figures of 24.4-7-38-4 on the final day of Bengal’s Ranji Trophy opener against Uttarakhand at Eden Gardens, changing the course of the match from a draw to an outright result. Bengal won by eight wickets.
With Shami’s game-turning spell, Uttarakhand, resuming on 165/2, were all out for 265 in their second innings to set Bengal an easy 156-run target. With 58 overs at their disposal, Bengal, riding on captain and opener Abhimanyu Easwaran’s unbeaten 71, took just 29.3 overs to complete the chase.
Considering chief national selector Ajit Agarkar’s counter-response to the pacer on his fitness, one can say Shami’s four wickets on Saturday came at the right time. Match figures of 7/75 enabled the Man of the Match to make a decent statement — he sent down 39.3 overs in this game and never looked like struggling with fitness.
“I can only say that the way Shami bowled in these conditions, he should play at least one Test against South Africa,” Bengal head coach Laxmi Ratan Shukla said.
The slowness of the Eden track aside, Shami just wasn’t able to hit the length
needed for wickets. On Saturday, his scalp of overnight batter Kunal Chandela (72)
with a 78-over-old ball was vital to triggering Uttarakhand’s collapse.
Bengal then yanked out three more wickets in no time with the new ball, shared by Ishan Porel and Akash Deep. The visitors resisted briefly with a counterattacking seventh-wicket stand of 64 off just 8.1 overs between Yuvraj Chaudhary (35 off
33 balls) and Abhay Negi (28 off 23 balls). But Shami had Negi caught at third man before knocking over Janmejay Joshi and Rajan Kumar soon after Lunch to finish with
a four-for.
Brief scores: Uttarakhand 213 & 265 (K. Chandela 72; Md Shami 4/38). Bengal 323 & 156/2 (A. Easwaran 71 n.o.). Bengal won by 8 wickets.
