Light at the end of tunnel for Bengal in domestic cricket season

KOLKATA: It has been yet another season of disappointment for Bengal as they ended the 2016-17 domestic cricket season without any major trophy. But in sport like as in life, it is always difficult to quantify success and in that respect the season should not be regarded as one of total failure. Rather it was more of narrow misses for the side. If we have to sum it up in few words, this season should go down as one when Bengal failed to seize key moments.
They made a good start by winning the pre-season KSCA tournament and carried forward that momentum into the Ranji Trophy season by staying among the top teams during the initial stage of the tournament.
After back-to-back victories against Railways and Punjab in their second and third matches, the team lost momentum when their tie against Gujarat was cancelled due to heavy smog in New Delhi. But their biggest setback came against Baroda when they suffered a two-day defeat against them to slip out of knockout contention.
The Manoj Tiwary-led team finally finished fifth in Group A. They lost only one match, but managed to win only two while drawing four games.
However, Bengal topped their group in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Zonal T20 meet and then Tiwary-led East Zone side went on to win the All India zonal tournament.
In the Vijay Hazare (One-dayers) meet, Bengal went all the way to the final before missing out on a golden opportunity to claim the title failing to get 218 runs against Tamil Nadu in the summit clash. But they did have a decent run in the tournament winning 16 of their last 18 matches.
However, the greatest achievement for Bengal came in the Cooch Behar Trophy when the Under-19 boys won the title after 19 long years. In fact in the absence of Mohammed Shami and Wriddhiman Saha, this season marked the coming of age of the Bengal young brigade. Pacer Amit Kuila made a dream debut for the senior side finishing with a match figure of 8-169 against Punjab. Opener Abhimanyu Easwaran, pacers Ishan Porel, Kanishk Seth, Sayan Ghosh, U-19 batsman Saurabh Singh, wicketkeeper-batsman Agniv Pan, all showed potential to make it big in future. However, the CAB will have to nurture them well to ensure that they are not lost midway.
It is also good to see Tiawry (643) and Sudip Chatterjee (557) coming out as the top scorers for Bengal in the Ranji Trophy and Dinda the pick of the bowlers with 39 wickets in seven matches.