Rajkot , December 13 : Bengal succumbed to their second successive defeat in the Vijay Hazare Trophy , as they lost by 4 wickets against Uttar Pradesh on Sunday . Following the loss Manoj Tiwary and his men will have their task cut out in qualifying for the knock out stage . Bengal captain Manoj Tiwary won the toss and did not hesitate to bat first . Openers Sreevats Goswami and Sayan Sekhar Mondal did not manage to give the start the team management expected as both of them got out cheaply . First to depart was Sreevats Goswami who was caught by Ekalavya off the bowling of Bhuvaneshwar Kumar for 3runs . Next to follow was Sayan Sekhar Mondal who was caught by Ekalavya Dwivedi off Praveen Kumar for 15 runs . Captain Manoj Tiwary did not last long as he was bowled by Md Zaved for 1 run . Indian test wicketkeeper Wridhiman Saha ‘s poor run with the bat continued as he departed for 16 runs caught by Piyush Chawla off the bowling of Md Zaved . Bengal were struggling at 55/4 at that time . In form Sudip Chatterjee combined well with Laxmi Ratan Shukla to put 69 runs for the fifth wicket . Laxmi’s entertaining innings of 32 runs was cut short by leg spinner Piyush Chawla as he got him plumbed before the wicket . Sudip Chatterjee kept the innings steady at the other end with good support from Pankaj Shaw and Md Shami . Sudip fell just three runs short of his hundred . Md Shami chipped in with a quickfire 20 runs off 15 balls which had two hits to the fence and a huge six . Bengal were dismissed for 221 in 48.3 overs . Uttar Pradesh in reply were given a great start by the openers who put 88 runs off 19.5 overs . Prashant Gupta was the first to depart caught by Sreevats off Ojha for 47 runs . Umang Sharma and Ekalavya Dwivedi put on 66 runs for the second wicket before Dwivedi was snuffed up by Md Shami for 45 runs . Shami again gave a breakthrough by removing Umang Sharma bowled for 73 runs . Suresh Raina , playing his first match of the tournament was caught by Laxmi off Dinda for only 7 runs . But that did not stop Uttar Pradesh from cruising towards a comfortable victory as they chased the target (222/6) with little over three overs remaining . Md Shami , who was making a comeback after being out for more than 8 months was the most successful bowler with two wickets . Bengal will next play Madhya Pradesh on December 17 , and it will be a must win tie for Bengal to stay in the competition .
