Kolkata: Bengal today picked a 16-member squad led by Sudip Chatterjee to compete in the pre-season Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) Invitational Tournament which will start from July 22. The selectors didn’t include veteran spinner Pragyan Ojha in the squad. Bengal skipper Manoj Tiwary and star pacer Ashok Dinda will not be a part of the tournament as the selectors have decided to give them some rest. The insiders from CAB are really very surprised by Pragyan Ojha’s absence in the squad. If the sources are to be believed Pragyan is thinking of leaving the Bengal team this season. Few months back he wrote a letter to CAB president Sourav Ganguly that he want to return to his home Hyderabad for some personal reasons. Few days back www.xtratime.in also stated that Pragyan is thinking of leaving the Bengal squad. Hyderabad Cricket Association (HCA) president also confirmed that Pragyan has demanded an NOC from CAB and if the Cricket Association of Bengal finally grant him the NOC he can come back to Hyderabad to play for their side.
Though the CAB haven’t said anything regarding this matter but a senior cricketer from the Bengal cricket team said that Pragyan may leave the Bengal team this year.
In the absence of Manoj, star left hand batsman Sudip Chatterjee will lead the side in the KSCA tournament. Last year Bengal won the tournament by beating mighty Mumbai. Bengal would like to replicate their performance again this year under Sudip’s leadership.
Except this 16 players, 8 players from Bengal Sayan Sekhar Mondal, Mukesh Kumar, Anurag Tiwary, Aritra Chatterjee, Pritam Chakraborty, Sayan Ghosh, Ritwik Roy Chowdhury and Sumanta Gupta are selected for a special camp for Vision 20-20 which will be held in Alur. The camp will be held from July 16 to July 22. The camp would be conducted by legendary Indian batsman VVS Laxman, M. Muralitharan and T.A. Sekhar. Except them Vision 20-20’s assistant coach Sourasish Lahiri would also be present in the camp.
Squad: Sudip Chatterjee (C), Abhimanyu Easwaran (VC), Abhishek Raman, Purav Joshi, Koushik Ghosh, Agniv Pan, Writtick Chatterjee, Debapriya Ghosh, Saurabh Ghosh, Aamir Gani, Pradipta Pramanik, Amit Kuila, Ananta Saha, B.Amit, Kanishk Seth, Abhishek Mitra.