Having suffered a 10-wicket humiliation against Tamil Nadu at home, Bengal skipper Sourav Ganguly on Friday urged his batsmen to lift their game to avoid being relegated to the Plate division in Ranji Trophy.
Published: Dec 09, 2011, 09:13 PM (IST)
Edited: Dec 09, 2011, 09:13 PM (IST)
Sourav Ganguly said Bengal batsmen failed to capitalise on chances © AFP
Kolkata: Dec 9, 2011
Having suffered a 10-wicket humiliation against Tamil Nadu at home, Bengal skipper Sourav Ganguly on Friday urged his batsmen to lift their game to avoid being relegated to the Plate division in Ranji Trophy.
In reply to Tamil Nadu’s 391, Bengal were bundled out for 176 and 246 as the visitors completed a bonus-point win to take the group B pole position, while the home side remained at the bottom of the table with five points from four matches.
Ganguly said it was a collective batting failure.
“We are not playing good cricket at the moment. I can’t blame anyone. I’m not questioning the commitment levels but somehow the runs are not coming,” he said.
“There are two more matches left (in the group league). We have to lift ourselves otherwise we will go down,” Ganguly, who also heads the state cricket development committee, said.
Asked whether they were done in by their own ploy of laying out a greentop, Ganguly said: “The wicket should be like this. But we could not capitalise. We had our chances when they were on 140/5 (in the first innings). But we let the game slip…”
“In fact, we should have played on a similar surface against the weaker teams (Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh)… We could have gone for three points then,” Ganguly lamented.
Bengal coach W V Raman said: “We are failing to seize the key moments of the matches.” (PTI)
