Captain Manoj Tiwary andpace spearhead Ashoke Dinda will be firing on all cylinders as hosts Bengaltake on a young Gujarat side led by Parthiv Patel in a third round Ranji Trophyencounter at the Eden Gardens from tomorrow.
While Bengal were thrashed byPunjab in their last group league match in Mohali, Gujarat could only manage apoint against Saurashtra in a run-feast at Surat.
On a sporting Eden Gardens trackthat offers substancial help to the seamers, the good news for Bengal will bethe return of fast bowler Shami Ahmed who was ruled out during the first twogames due to side strain.
The Shami-Dinda combination isthe fastest among the domestic new ball pairs in the country and have theability to rattle any oppositon with raw pace.
It will be interesting to see howthe Bengal pace trio of Shami, Dinda and Sourav Sarkar tackle a batting line-upthat has domestic run-machine Parthiv, seasoned Y Venugopal Rao and ManpreetJuneja who scored a double century on his first-class debut last season.
However Bengal's main problemover the years has been batting. Save Manoj Tiwary and to a certain extentWriddhiman Saha, none of the other Bengal batsmen have been able to showconsistency that is required to win a national championship.
While Wriddhiman has scored fourconsecutive first-class half centuries in four innings, Manoj's slight dip inform is a worry for the home team as it is largely dependant on the form of itsskipper.
For Manoj, a big score is alsoimportant because the Bengal batsman needs to score more than his immediatecompetitor Rohit Sharma in order to atleast cement a place in the ODI scheme ofthings.
Middle-order batsman AnustupMajumdar has been badly exposed after a good first season as the bowlers seemedto have sorted him out and he hasn't got a good score till now.
The home team will also hope thatveteran all-rounder Laxmi Ratan Shukla comes good like he did in the previousgame and whenever Shukla has done well, Bengal has held the upperhand overtheir opposition.