Kolkata: After nudging the ball to the off-side to complete his century, a resolute Anustup Majumdar raised his bat to celebrate. Although it was like any other normal celebration but for the veteran Bengal batsman, it was a special one as it had come after a long gap of five years.
His last ton while playing for Bengal had come way back in 2012 against Baroda in a Ranji Trophy encounter in Vadodara and he felt that this was a memorable knock for him as it had a role to play in bailing the team out trouble.
“Firstly, the team was in a dire situation and from that situation, such a performance was required by both the team as well as for myself and I feel that the wicket still has a lot of life and so let’s see what happens,” he said, while talking to the reporters after the match.
He also added that such a knock would give him a lot of confidence, heading into the knockout stages of the tournament.
“Such a batting performance is indeed going to give a lot of confidence as I couldn’t score in the last innings as well as in the first match. Here I was determined and also the team was in a poor situation so this is going to give me a lot of confidence heading into the knockouts.”
Bengal were in all sorts of trouble as they were reduced to 20/3 at one stage and after a slight recovery, they lost a settled batsman in Abhimanyu Easwaran, which brought out Anustup to the crease.
Opening up on the partnership which changed the complexion of the game, he said, “Initially it was very challenging but both Sree as well as myself, are stroke players. We discussed that we would stay positive in the middle and the pressure was eased with two-three boundaries. After that as time passed, the wicket became easy to bat on. One of their bowlers-Lakshaya Garg was bowling well as we both discuss that if we get through that spell we can bat throughout the day.”
However, this long partnership couldn’t have flourished had the Goa fielders taken the catches. Both Sreevats and Anustup were dropped and hence, the duo made complete use of this and take Bengal to a strong position. On asked as to whether luck favoured them or not, Anustup said, ” See, these things can happen in a game. Still, I would say that we played positively so the things went our way.”
He also added, “We tried to play positive cricket right from the beginning and that is why we have runs on the board now. But tomorrow is an all new beginning and the first over would be crucial for me.”