Xtra Time Web Desk: Veteran batter and former Bengal captain, who is also a minister of state in sports and youth affairs in the Mamata Banerjee-led government, will gear up for his 17th year in first class cricket.
Tiwary, a MLA from Shibpur constituency last played for Bengal in their Ranji final against Saurashtra in March 2020.
The 36-year-old joined TMC ahead of the Assembly polls and won from Shibpur constituency beating BJP’s Rathin Chakraborty.
Bengal is placed in Group B along with Vidarbha, Rajasthan, Kerala, Haryana and Tripura. Abhimanyu Easwaran will lead the Bengal side and will kick start their campaign against Tripura in Bangalore from January 13. Due to COVID-19 matches will be played at neutral venues.
Bengal’s preparation for the premier first class tournament has been hit with seven members including assistant coach testing COVID-19 positive on Sunday.
Sudip Chatterjee, Anustup Majumdar, Kazi Junaid Saifi, Geet Puri and Pradipta Pramanik, who are among the six players to have tested positive, have also been named in the 21-member squad.
>Squad: Abhimanyu Easwaran (c), Manoj Tiwary, Sudip Chatterjee, Anustup Majumdar, Abhishek Raman, Sudip Gharami, Abishek Das, Writtick Chatterjee, Ritwik Roy Chowdhury, Abhishek Porel, Shahbaz Ahmed, Sayan Sekhar Mondal, Akash Deep, Ishan Porel, Mukesh Kumar, Kazi Junaid Saifi, Sakir Habib Gandhi, Pradipta Pramanik, Geet Puri, Nilakantha Das and Karan Lal.
With inputs from PTI