Mohammad Kaif had emphasised on the eve of the Ranji Trophy match against Bengal that the star-studded Uttar Pradesh contingent always played as a team.Less than three days into the Elite Group B match at the Eden Gardens today, Kaif’s boys backed up the claim, completing a massive innings victory over a listless Bengal outfit in their den.Fittingly, if it were bigwigs Kaif, Suresh Raina and Praveen Kumar who rocked hosts Bengal in the first couple of days, Day III saw new, lesser-celebrated heroes rise to the occasion and match the bigger names in the UP side, in pursuit of a massive innings and 152-run victory.Laxmi Ratan Shukla & Co were already looking down the barrel going into today’s play. And UP pacer Sudeep Tyagi (4/38) and young left-arm spinner Praveen Gupta (5/11) clinically wrapped up the match with an entire day’s play left. After putting up just 149 in the first innings, Bengal were dismissed for 193 in the second innings today, and UP logged six full points.Already boasting of an overnight lead of 288 runs, UP took the lead to a whopping 345 runs, piling up 494. Praveen Kumar (67), stumper Amir Khan (46) and young speedster Bhubaneshwar Kumar (22) piled up Bengal’s agony today.Then young guns Tyagi and Gupta and got into the act of decimating the Bengal batting line-up. Interestingly, even as lanky pacer Tyagi, followed by gutsy left-arm spinner Gupta, ripped the heart out of the Bengal batting, the bowling blitz came only after an impressive 100-run opening stand between Anustup Majumdar (60) and Arindam Das (31).Das and Majumdar’s patient knocks gave the Bengal dressing room some hope. But once right-arm quick Tyagi got the first breakthrough, the floodgates opened up, and the rest of the batting simply surrendered without a fight.Brief scores: Bengal 149 & 193 in 64.3 overs (Anustup Majumdar 60, LR Shukla 41; Praveen Kumar 5/11, Sudeep Tyagi 4/38) vs UP 494 (Md Kaif 91, Suresh Raina 63, Praveen Kumar 67, RP Srivastava 58, Piyush Chawla 53).
