Kolkata captain superbly lead his young guns on the field and later scored a fine unbeaten 75 to carve out a rather comfortable eight-wicket victory over Rajasthan Royals.
Though it was a tad baffling why Ganguly and his partner Cheteshwar Pujara, who batted well for his 45, did not show any urgency to knock off the runs within 13 overs, as it would have helped the team to have more favourable net run rate.
Eventually, after restricting Rajasthan to 132 for 9, Kolkata scored 133 for 2 with consummate ease and with 3.5 overs to spare. Jaidev Unadkat, the 18-year-old left-arm medium-pacer was adjudged man-of-the-match for his fine bowling effort of 3 for 26 in 4 overs.
After inspiring the bowlers with his outstanding fielding, Ganguly brilliantly anchored Kolkata’s innings and scored a 50-ball 75, which included two blazing sixes and 11 boundaries. He shared an unbeaten 111-run partnership with Pujara to make the run-chase look like a walk in the park. Though initially, Kolkata were in a spot of bother when they lost two of their most explosive batsmen Brendon McCullum (6) and Chris Gayle (0) in the third over with the scoreboard reading 22 for 2.
They built the innings with a lot of patience and care. They chose the more ugly but effective way of building the innings— with singles and twos. Ganguly worked the gaps smartly and ran hard like a youngster in his 20s. And every time a bowler erred in length, the captain would help himself to a boundary. In fact, he began very confidently by cracking Yusuf Pathan for two boundaries in the first over of the innings and stepped on the gas towards the business end of the innings.
Pujara played the role of a junior partner to perfection. He placed the ball well in the gaps and often gave Saurav the strike to take the game in control. During his 38-ball innings, Pujara hit five cracking boundaries and a massive six.
After being asked to bowl, Kolkata allowed the tourists to get off to a fine start, when the openers Shane Watson and Naman Ojha raced off to 46 for no loss in the first 6 overs. Ganguly turned to his statemate Laxmi Ratan Shukla and he more than obliged his captain.
Shukla bowled a slower bouncer to which Watson had no answer; he completely missed the line to see the ball rearrange his timber. Until then Watson had been shaping up well for a big score but had to return to the dug out for 44.
Unadkat produced another breakthrough when Ojha flashed hard at a rank bad ball wide outside the off stump, but Shukla pulled of a breathtaking catch at point by flinging himself full length to his left.
In a matter of one over, Rajasthan went from 59 for no loss to 69 for 2. It was still a decent platform for the middle order to put up a formidable total but soon after Yusuf Pathan departed and that opened the flood gates. Pathan got out to a spectacular catch by Ganguly, who dived full-length to take a single-handed catch off Unadkat.
The Royals batsmen joined the procession that went in one direction — the dug out. A wicket fell almost every second over and there was no partnership worth the mention. The next seven wickets could add only 61 runs.
Strike bowler Shane Bond bowled remarkably well and finished with a figure of 20 for 1 in his 4 overs, which included a wicket maiden. Medium-pacer Ashok Dinda also put up a spirited effort while taking 2 for 24.
