Ojha ignored in Bengal’s Ranji squad

Kolkata, Sept. 26: India discard Pragyan Ojha was on Tuesday left out of Bengal’s squad for Ranji Trophy, despite not being released by Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) to play for Hyderabad.

Having played two seasons with Bengal, Ojha’s NOC request to return to his home state was declined by CAB president Sourav Ganguly who had said they needed “his service”.

Apparently upset with the decision, Ojha did not turn up for preseason practice and had been incommunicado since then as the Bengal selectors opted for a 16member squad to be led by Manoj Tiwary for their first two Ranji matches.

Bengal will take on Services from October 6-9 at Palam, New Delhi, before facing Chhattisgarh from October 14-17 at Raipur. “His name was not discussed, as we don’t know about his whereabouts,” CAB joint secretary Avishek Dalmiya said.

It means Ojha will not be able to play domestic cricket this season putting his first class career in jeopardy.

Bengal have picked uncapped left-arm spinner Pradipta Pramanik, who has impressed with one four-wicket and another three-wicket haul in two warmup games in Surat. — PTI Bengal squad: Manoj Tiwary (captain), Sudip Chatterjee (vicecaptain), Wriddhiman Saha (wicketkeeper), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shreevats Goswami, Anustup Majumder, Abhishek Raman, Koushik Ghosh, Aamir Gani, Pradipta Pramanik, Ashok Dinda, Sayan Ghosh, Mukesh Kumar, Kanishk Seth, B. Amit and Writtick Chatterjee.