Pragyan Ojha to miss out on the first two matches for Bengal in Ranji Trophy

Former Indian International and West Bengal off-spinner, Pragyan Ojha, has not been named in Bengal’s squad for the first two games of the Ranji Trophy, which is scheduled to commence from October 6. The left arm wrist spinner will be missing out on the games against Services and Chattisgarh.

Bengal will be locking horns with Services on October 6-9 at Palam ground in New Delhi. The Manoj Tiwary led side will then play Chattisgarh at their home ground in Raipur. After playing two seasons for Bengal, Ojha desired to return back to Hyderabad.

Ojha out of reach since not been granted NOC

As it turned out, Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB)  refused to provide Pragyan Ojha with the No Objection Certificate (NOC). Since then, the cricket board headed by Sourav Ganguly has failed to establish contact with him. Ojha has been a stalwart as far as First Class Cricket is concerned. In the 104 wickets he has played so far, Ojha has clinched as many as 419 wickets, with 23 five-wicket hauls and 3 ten-wicket hauls in a match.

Meanwhile, India’s premier wicket keeper batsman in Test, Wriddhiman Saha has been named in the squad. It is expected that Saha would be joining the national camp right after the two games for upcoming series against Sri Lanka in November. Since making his maiden century in Test cricket against West Indies back in 2016, he has piled on 745 runs at an average of 43.82, including three hundred and three half-centuries.

Bengal has been pooled in Group D along with other teams such as Services, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. In the previous season of the Ranji Trophy, Bengal was placed at number 5 in Group A.

Squad:

Manoj Tiwary (captain), Sudip Chatterjee (vice-captain), Wriddhiman Saha, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sreevats Goswami, Anustup Majumdar, Abhishek Kr. Raman, Koushik Ghosh, Aamir Gani, Pradipta Pramanik, Ashoke Dinda, Sayan Ghosh, Mukesh Kumar, Kanishk Seth, B Amit, Writtick Chatterjee.