Bengal Cricket: East Bengal wins J.C. Mukherjee

East Bengal defeated Tapan Memorial by 9 wickets to win the J.C. Mukherjee Trophy. In a rain effected match, the match was reduced to a 9 overs game. Tapan could only manage 54 runs as they kept losing wickets from the start. Left arm pacer Sourav Mondal was adjudged the Player of the match for his contributions with the ball.

East Bengal won the toss and chose to ball as the CAB groundsmen removed the covers. it was quite obvious that pacers would get some help from the Eden Gardens pitch in the evening. With the lights on, the pace and bounce was top notch.

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Sayan Sekhar Mondal and Rohit Kumar started well for the ultras and as Kuldeep Devatwal was sent early. Sourav Mondal struck later as captain Kaif was sent back to the pavilion too.

Ayan Bhattacharya came into the attack from the North end as he replaced Sayan Sekhar Mondal. Ayan came and struck early too as he got out Gaurav Chauhan for the fourth wicket of the inning.

Shakir Habib Gandhi came to the crease with all the hopes on his shoulders, but wickets kept falling from the other end. Habib tried some shots, and was successful in few of them.

However, Sourav Mondal kept on taking wickets along with captain Sohom Ghosh to break the backbone of Tapan's batting line up.

As Habib departed for a 12-ball-18, the inning got restricted to 54/8 after the full quota of 9 overs.

For East Bengal, in-form Ankur Paul and Ranjot Singh Khaira came to the crease. Both the openers looked in ease as Tapan bowlers struggled to send them back to the dressing room.

All looked smooth until Vikas Dixit came to bowl. The spinner was really hard to score of as Eden Gardens looked for contest. Though, East Bengal lost Ankur, incoming batter Sudip Gharami and Ranjot made sure the red and yellow brigade wins the first trophy of the season.

The full scorecard of the match is available here.