Kolkata: Former India skipper and BCCI’s technical committee chairman Sourav Ganguly today said that Bengal won’t give an NOC to Pargyan Ojha to play for Hyderabad.”We won’t give an NOC to him as the Bengal cricket team needs him this season,” said Ganguly while leaving Eden Gardens. The last date to give an NOC to Pragyan is August 31.
According to the insiders, the Bengal team management don’t want to leave Ojha as from this season there is a high possibility that BCCI would head back to its old ‘home and away’ format for the Ranji Trophy. Bengal team might prepare a turner in the forthcoming Ranji Trophy at the Eden Gardens and Ojha’s role would be crucial on that pitch. On the other hand star Karnataka opener Robin Uthappa urged to CAB president Sourav Ganguly that he would want to play for Bengal this season, but Sourav had turned down his appeal as Bengal has a talented opener like Abhimanyu Easwaran. After that Robin signed for Kerala for the upcoming season.
There is a high possibility that BCCI will head back to its old ‘home and away’ format for the Ranji Trophy when board’s technical committee under the chairmanship of former India skipper Sourav Ganguly meet in Kolkata in a five star hotel on August 1 at 2pm. All the top members of the committee will reach Kolkata by the morning. After this another meeting of Tours and Fixtures Committee will take place on the same day to decide the fixtures of India’s limited overs home series against Australia which will be played between October and November. India will play five ODIs two T20Is against the Aussies. Virat Kohli led Indian cricket team will play another bilateral series against Sri Lanka during November and December 2017. Both teams will play 3 Tests, 5 ODIs and 2 T-20s.
India played a Test match against New Zealand from September 30 in 2016 and an ODI against England on January 22 in 2016 at the Eden Gardens. So as per the rotation policy CAB won’t get a Test or ODI match right now. But India last played a T-20I match at the Eden Gardens on October 8 in 2015, so they can appeal to host a T-20 match.
On the other hand, Two new venues, Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala and Barsapara in Assam are in contention to host international matches during the home season in which India are set to play a record 23 international matches at home between September and December. A decision will be taken by BCCI’s Tours and Fixtures Committee in Kolkata on Tuesday.