Nagpur : It was another batting failure and yet another example of inconsistency from Bengal batsmen , as they faced an ignominious 8 wicket-defeat against Gujarat. Parthiv Patel and his side degraded Bengal bowling to the level of club cricket .
Bengal’s stand in captain Ashoke Dinda won the toss and elected to bat first at Jamtha . Bengal were skittled out for 101 runs in 19.2 overs . RP Singh gave the first breakthrough for Gujarat getting rid of Wridhiman Saha bowled for only 12 runs . Sudip Chatterjee , who got a call up in India A squad soon followed Saha for a duck . Bengal were 28/2 and never looked like recovering with Pankaj Shaw(10),Pramod Chandila(7) failing with the bat against the bowling of Jasprit Bumrah and Rohit Tahiya Young pacers Dahiya and Bumrah shared 6 wickets conceding just 30 runs.
Chasing 102 runs for victory , Gujarat raced to the target off only 11.2 overs losing just couple of wickets .Gujarat captain Parthiv Patel carried on the good form he is in , with another fiery knock of 52 runs off 32 balls . His innings was studded with 9 fours and a six. Priyank Panchal scored 24 runs.
Bengal’s chances of making it to the qualifiers has now become much more difficult .Dinda and his team now have to win both their matches against Vidarbha and Haryana to enter the knock out stage of the Syed Mushtaq Ali trophy. Amidst the humiliating result , the only good news for Bengal is Pragyan Ojha is fit to play tommorow’s match against Vidarbha .