Fallah rips apart Bengal as Maharashtra gain firm control

Left-arm seamer Samad Fallah exposed the poor technique of Bengal's batsmen with some incisive swing bowling to put Maharashtra in the driver's seat on the first day of their Ranji Trophy semi-final here today.
Fallah wrecked havoc with the new ball claiming seven for 58 in 16.4 overs as Bengal were shot out for a paltry 114 in 41.4 overs. In reply, Maharashtra reached 164 for four at stumps taking their first innings lead to 50.
While the Bengal team management did their homework about the trio of Harshad Khadiwale (28), Vijay Zol (1) and Kedar Jadhav (40), coach Ashoke Malhotra and his side had no planning for Maharashtra's military medium trundlers led by Fallah, who had decimated a heavyweight Mumbai batting line-up for only 129.

They did even better today as Bengal batsmen had no clue while facing the Maharashtra left-armer, who picked up his 11th five-wicket haul in first-class cricket.
With six Bengal batsmen failing to reach double figures and five of them scoring below five runs, it was evident how heavily the Bengal batting depended on Laxmi Ratan Shukla (14) and Wriddhiman Saha (29) -- both of whom failed on the day.
Such was Fallah's effect that he got the ball to swing both ways and most of the Bengal players looked clueless as to which delivery was coming in and which ones were leaving the bat.

Debutant left-handed opener Kaushik Ghosh got one that swung away and he offered a simple catch to Jadhav at first slip. Abhimanyu Easwaran (11) and veteran opener Arindam Das (37) batted with a negative mindset as they crawled to 16 for one in 12 overs.
With his tail-up, Fallah came round the wicket to fire in a fuller delivery that caught Easwaran plumb in-front. Off the first delivery of his next over, left-hander Sudip Chatterjee (0) got an unplayable delivery that jagged back in. Bengal were 21 for three.