Bengal rode Vijay Murmu and Jiten Murmu’s strikes to edge past Odisha in their group opener in the Santosh Trophy at PTI Mehanga Stadium in Punjab on Monday. Vijay Murmu and Jiten Murmu scored for the winners. 

But it was not Odisha, Bengal's major oppositions were the worst ground condition, poor officiating of matches, and the discomfort of travelling almost one-and-half hours from the hotel to the venue. 

Coach Ranjan Chowdhury revealed, "Referee showed six yellow cards to our footballers and sent off Vijay Murmu on the second yellow. The most unfortunate part is that the referee issued yellow cards even if our footballers touched any of the opposition footballers." 

Chowdhury sounded anxious on the matter that if the respective referees continue showing yellow cards to Bengal’s footballers in this way then it might be difficult for him to field the team against Punjab in their fourth group league match. 

The ground condition is so hard that any footballer can suffer from a muscle injury in any match. The Bengal team had to travel almost one-and-half hour from the hotel to the ground.

At the same time, a lot of criticism is being made on the poor telecast of the matches. United Sports director Nabab Bhattacharya opined, "How such a poor telecast quality of the matches can be acceptable in a competition like Santosh Trophy? Then how can the matches take place on such bad ground? One will be surprised to notice that last year's semi-finals and the final of this tournament were taken to Saudi and this season, the same tournament is being organized in such an unprofessional manner."