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Journalism of Courage
On a day when an hour of bad batting saw Bengal surrender the initiative and eventually lose their Ranji Trophy quarter-final against Tamil Nadu, coach Utpal Chatterjee said he wasn’t sure whether the powers that be would let him continue.
“I don’t know whether I will be allowed to continue as coach. If they (CAB) want me to continue, then I have to be given complete freedom. I will continue on my own terms, with my dignity intact. If they don’t like it, I don’t mind saying goodbye,” Chatterjee told The Indian Express.
The CAB, on the other hand, has decided to show-cause Chatterjee and will call a working committee meeting in 10 days’ time to formalise the process — indication that the Jagmohan Dalmiya-led administration doesn’t want Chatterjee to continue.
The Bengal coach was at the centre of a controversy a week back that saw a lot of bad blood between him and chief selector Sambaran Banerjee. The former was not invited to the selection meeting for the Tamil Nadu match. Both accompanied the team to Bangalore but Banerjee couldn’t enter the dressing room, on instructions from the coach.
Asked whether the controversy affected the players’ focus, Chatterjee said: “I don’t think so. If that’d been the case, we would have lost in two days. We were in the driver’s seat till this morning and lost it due to some poor batting on the final day.”
Badrinath, Balaji guide TN
Bangalore: S Badrinath struck an unbeaten 92 and, along with M Vijay’s 73, guided Tamil Nadu to an eight-wicket victory over Bengal after L Balaji ripped through their batting.
After conceding a first innings lead of 39, Tamil Nadu bounced back by bundling out Bengal for 187, then notching up the victory target of 227 runs on Monday, losing just two wickets in the process.
Resuming at 134 for four, Bengal lost six wickets for 53 runs with Balaji turning out to be the wrecker-in-chief, returning figures of 20-10-24-6. Tamil Nadu’s chase started smoothly as openers Abhinav Mukund (31) and M Vijay (73) put on 84 runs in 18.5 overs.
