da pinup bet： Orissa qualified for the Wills Trophy after 16 years, defeating Bengal by eightwickets in their final East Zone Ranji Trophy one day league match at the EdenGardens today
Sakysen Mittra10-Dec-2000Orissa qualified for the Wills Trophy after 16 years, defeating Bengal by eightwickets in their final East Zone Ranji Trophy one day league match at the EdenGardens today. As a result, Orissa finished with eight points, sufficient forthem to make it to the Wills Trophy.It was a wrong decision by the Bengal think-tank that proved disastrous for thehosts. After winning the toss, Bengal decided to bat on a pitch that had a lotof life in the initial period, an advantage that was used to the hilt byDebashis Mohanty and Ajoy Barik. Bengal lost their first seven wickets within 20runs and the match was as good as over during the first hour of the game. Thedecision to bat was all the more surprising because only on Saturday, Bengalskipper Devang Gandhi had said they would like to chase. It was the grave errorin reading the pitch that prevented the finalists of 1998 from qualifying thisseason.Bengal managed to reach three figures only because of a doughty knock fromWrichik Mazumdar. He scored 37 in 80 balls and with Shiv Sagar Singh added 42runs for the ninth wicket. Before that, it was simply a tale of going and comingback. The slide started when the Orissa wicket-keeper Gautam Gopal took anexcellent catch on the leg side to dismiss makeshift opener Lakshmi Ratan Shuklaoff the bowling of Barik. Then Mohanty got into the act. With his outswingerworking nicely, Mohanty cartwheeled Nikhil Haldipur and Rohan Gavaskar. Barik onthe other hand had Gandhi hooking, only to find the fielder at square leg.Bengal had then been reduced to only nine runs for four wickets. Mohanty thenonce more produced a lovely break back to bowl Deep Dasgupta in his third over.Then in his fifth over he had Utpal Chatterjee playing on and with the fifthdelivery of the same over, had Sanjiv Sanyal edging to keeper Gopal. Bengal atthis stage, were 20 for seven. Srikkant Kalyani, Mazumdar and Singh managed totake the total to over 100. However, that would not have been possible had notthe Orissa team given away 25 extras, 20 of which came from wides and no balls.When Orissa batted, BBCC Mahapatra was bowled by Shukla trying to pull a ballthat kept low. Immediately after lunch, Shukla had Gopal caught at point with aball that bounced a bit more. However, Sanjay Raul batting with elan on a pitchthat had dried up, quietly guided Orissa to victory without a fuss. His drivingwithin the `V’ was a treat to watch. He remained unbeaten on 42 with five fours.With Pradip Das, the other opener, Raul added 78 runs to take Orissa to aconvincing win.