After stepping down as Bengal’s head coach, Arun Lal looked back on his stint with pride and rated the state team as one of the top five teams in the country.
Lal, who served as a mentor in the 2018-19 season before taking over as the head coach the following season, led Bengal in the Ranji Trophy final (against Saurashtra) after 13 years in 2019-2020 and the semi-final (against Saurashtra). where he lost). for eventual champion Madhya Pradesh) in 2021-22. (Ranji Trophy was not organized in 2020-21 due to the pandemic.)
Lal said that he will miss the players of Bengal. “It was a painful and difficult decision. I thought about it a lot. Nine months in a year you’re totally busy round the clock… I’m just tired. It’s a tough job, home coaching is very tough because teams are full are evenly matched across the board” pointed out Lal Hindu on Wednesday.
Someone donned India’s colors and was part of the Bengal team that won the 1989–90 Ranji Trophy, Lal praised the current players.
“I am very happy. The people have shown great commitment, work ethic and desire and have performed extremely well.
“If we look at the domestic circuit, out of the four semifinalists from last year (2019-20), only one team qualified for the semi-finals and that was Bengal. Even the last season’s winner (Saurashtra) did not qualify. Two teams playing this year’s final (Madhya Pradesh and Mumbai) did not qualify a year ago.
“Even though we don’t have the trophy, Bengal are in the top five in every format. We’ve played some great white-ball cricket. Most of the work has been done. When they win the trophy, I will celebrate with them.
Lal expected Bengal to do even better in the coming days. “We can move on from here. We have some good young players coming in in the white-ball format. Unfortunately, we are not getting much in the red-ball format. But the whole of the red-ball format including the Indian team. The country is struggling.