Ranji Trophy: Sourav Ganguly sends a strong message regarding Bengal team selection

pragyanojhapti-m
Pragyan Ojha has to play for Bengal, says Sourav Ganguly. File Pic

Kolkata: The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) on Monday announced 35 men probable squad for upcoming Ranji Trophy season. Bengal is placed in Group D and will face Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Vidarbha, Goa, Punjab and Services in the group stages. The controversy regarding veteran left-arm off-spinner Pragyan Ojha is still going on as the selectors have kept Ojha in 35 probables squad for the forthcoming Ranji season. Earlier Ojha had requested for an NOC as he wants to return to Hyderabad to play again for his home state next season. He personally requested CAB President Sourav Ganguly too regarding this matter. Though earlier Sourav said they won’t leave Ojha this season and he has to play for Bengal. The last date to give an NOC to Pragyan is August 31.

After today’s team selection Sourav was in same mood. When asked about Pragyan, he replied,” Pragyan will play for Bengal this season. That’s why we have included him in 35 probables squad.”

Sourav further added that,” I haven’t talked with Pragyan till now, but the side needs him this season.”

After the selection process, close sources of Ojha said that,” The CAB hasn’t said anything officially regarding this probable team selection. He is still hopeful that he would get an NOC from Bengal for this season.”

Hyderabad Cricket Association Secretary Shesh Narayan on Friday sent a mail to CAB by saying that they haven’t received any news regarding Pragyan from the CAB officials and that’s why they didn’t include Pragyan in a pre-season tournament called  Moinuddoula Trophy. On being asked about the matter, Narayan said,” We think CAB would look into the matter and if they give him an NOC only then we will include Pragyan in  the Hyderabad squad.”

As per the sources from CAB,” They haven’t taken any final decision about Ojha till now. The officials will talk to Pragyan regarding this matter and everything would be known after 31st August.”

Among these 35 probables, the selectors have given a chance to six youngsters to prove themselves. They are Purab Joshi, Debopriyo Ghosh, Abhishek Mitra, Sourav Singh, Ananta Saha and Pradipta Pramanik.

Bengal will fly to Gujarat on September 15 to play two four days practice matches against Gujarat and Baroda.

A Ground’s Committee meeting was also held at CAB today. Few days back the committee took a decision that they would hike the salary of the grounds men of Kalyani by 20%. After this the ground men of Eden Gardens also urged that CAB should hike their salaries too. CAB President Sourav Ganguly today said that the committee will look into this matter. Eden Gardens won the award of best venue by the Governing Council of BCCI, as a result they received 25 lakh rupees as the price money. The committee is thinking on distributing the price money among the grounds men of Eden Gardens. Bengal Hockey Association (B.H.A) acquires the grounds of CAB from the month of March to conduct their Hockey League. For this reason the board faces lots of problem to organize the matches of CAB league. To solve this problem in the forthcoming season the BHA has already allotted seven grounds to CAB this season. On the other hand the CAB has given B.R and Customs ground to BHA.

Bengal 35 probables for Ranji Trophy: Manoj Tiwary, Ashoke Dinda, Shreevats Goswami, Pragyan Ojha, Wriddhiman Saha, Mohammed Shami, Sudip Chatterjee, Abhishek Raman, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Koushik Ghosh, Purab Joshi, Anustup Majumder, Agniv Pan, Prasenjit Das, Pankaj Shaw, Debopriyo Ghosh, Abhishek Mitra, Saurabh Singh, Sayan Ghosh, Ishan Porel, Kanishk Seth, Amit Kuila, Mukesh Kumar, Ananta Saha , Pritam Chakraborty, Aloke Pratap Singh , Sourav Mondal, Writtick Chatterjee, B. Amit, Sayan Sekhar Mondal, Pradipta Pramanik, Aamir Gani, Anurag Tiwary, Aritra Chatterjee, Amit Banerjee.