da fazobetai： Saba Karim’s 19th Ranji Trophy hundred enabled Bengal to fight backafter they had lost their top order cheaply against Karnataka at theEden Gardens today
Sakyasen Mittra04-Mar-2000Saba Karim’s 19th Ranji Trophy hundred enabled Bengal to fight backafter they had lost their top order cheaply against Karnataka at theEden Gardens today. At close of play on the opening day of their RanjiTrophy Super League Group A encounter Bengal were 281 for fivewickets. Karim was unbeaten on 109 and skipper Utpal Chatterjee wasbatting on 16. On the way to his hundred, Karim became the fifthplayer from Bengal to score 5,000 runs in the Ranji Trophy when hereached 31.The Bengal selectors should have a discussion with Nikhil Haldipur andRohan Gavaskar. Both got out to rash shots today. Haldipur tried toglance a ball down the leg side and nicked it to wicket keeper TilakNaidu off Dodda Ganesh. He showed dissent at the umpire’s decisionindicating that he had not edged the ball. The match was then only 5.3overs old and he had been stroking the ball fluently.Gavaskar who was well settled on 44, tried to steer a wide ball fromVenkatesh Prasad and edged it to Arun Kumar at second slip. It was aball he could have well left alone.Bengal lost Haldipur and Gandhi when the score was only 38. Then theyrecovered through a third wicket partnership of 71 runs betweenGavaskar and Alokendu Lahiri. However, the innings receivedrespectability as Karim and Charanjit Singh took charge. Karim’sinnings was faultless. He drove on both sides of the wicket and morethan half of his 17 boundaries came of the pull shot whenever spinnersSunil Joshi and debutant S Vadeyaraj dropped the ball short. Hereached his hundred cutting Prasad to the point fence. He had batted197 minutes and faced 106 balls.Charanjit on the other hand played second fiddle in the 115 runpartnership for the fifth wicket. However, after scoring 36 with fourboundaries he failed to keep his cut down of Vadeyaraj and was caughtby Arun Kumar at point. But he was lucky as Ganesh grassed a simplechance offered by him from the bowling of Joshi when he was onlyseven. After his dismissal, Chatterjee then added 57 runs for theunbroken sixth wicket with Karim. Even the second new ball taken after82 overs failed to break this dour stand.