After stepping down as the Bengal head coach, Arun Lal looked back at his stint with pride and rated the state team as one of the top five sides in the country.
Lal, who served as a mentor in the 2018-19 season before taking over as the head coach the following season, guided Bengal to the Ranji Trophy final (against Saurashtra) after 13 years in 2019-2020 and to the semifinals (where it lost to eventual champion Madhya Pradesh) in 2021-22. (Ranji Trophy was not held in 2020-21 due to the pandemic.)
Lal said he would miss the Bengal players. “It was a painful and tough decision. I thought about it a lot. Nine months in a year you are totally occupied 24x7…I am just tired. It’s a tough job, domestic coaching is very tough because the teams are so evenly matched all across the board” Lal told The Hindu on Wednesday.
