Sourav Ganguly will play in all the matches for Bengal barring the one against Tripura in the Inter-State One-Day Tournament (East Zone) to be held Kolkata from February 15 to 23. The Bengal selectors, who named 24 probables for the one-day meet today, would pick the final squad after watching a practice match at the Eden on Februray 11.
“Sourav has agreed to play all the matches, except one against Tripura which will be held at Jadavpur University (second campus) ground in Salt Lake on February 19,” CAB Joint Secretary Arun Mitra told reporters. Apparently, there was some confusion over the captaincy issue as the selectors refrained from naming him. Asked whether there was some uncertainty over Laxmi Ratan Shukla leading the side, Mitra said, “the squad will be picked on February 11 and the captaincy also will be decided on that day. At the moment, nobody has been named captain.”
Bengal would open their campaign against Jharkhand at Eden Gardens on February 15 in the zonal one-dayers which also has Assam, Tripura and Orissa.
Having retired from international cricket at the end of the Australia series in November last year, Ganguly made a special appearance for the state Ranji team against Goa in Delhi. The win against Goa helped Bengal come out of the Plate Group and get promoted to the Super League.
The probables:
Sourav Ganguly, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Manoj Tiwary, Anustup Majumder, Wriddhiman Saha, Ranadeb Bose, Iresh Saxena, Ashoke Dinda, Sourav Sarkar, Avik Chowdhury, Shreevats Goswami, Arindam Ghosh, Avishek Banerjee, Dibyendu Chakraborty, Ritam Kundu, Amit Das, Mohammad Ashrafuddin, Nilakantha Das, Soham Ghosh, Mohammad Azaz Ansari, Sayan Sekhar Mondal, Arijit Banerjee, Debashish Banerjee, Sahabaz Nadeem.
Fixtures:
February 15: Jharkhand vs Bengal (Eden Gardens); Assam vs Tripura (Jadavpur University ground)
February 17: Assam vs Bengal (JU); Tripura vs Orissa (Eden)
February 19: Tripura vs Bengal (JU); Jharkhand vs Orissa (Eden)
February 21: Orissa vs Bengal (Eden); Assam vs Jharkhand (JU)
February 23: Assam vs Orissa (Eden); Tripura vs Jharkhand (JU).