The cold war between Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) and discarded India spinner Pragyan Ojha intensified after the state body “failed to establish contact” with him before naming the Bengal squad for two-match warm-up tour of Gujarat, starting September 17.
Ojha, who played two seasons for Bengal, wanted to return to Hyderabad but has not been granted No Objection Certificate (NOC) by CAB.
“We have not yet established any contact with him, so we are forced to name the squad without him,” CAB joint secretary Avishek Dalmiya said according to PTI.
But Ojha is yet to inform his whereabouts and has not joined the training camp under coach Sairaj Bahutule. Bengal started their pre-season training for more than two weeks.
The 17-member team will be led by Shreevats Goswami with regular captain Manoj Tiwary playing in Duleep Trophy. They will play one four-day and another three-day match in Surat.
Squad: Shreevats Goswami (c), Anustup Majumder, Koushik Ghosh, Purab Joshi, Abhishek Raman, Abhishek Mitra, Agniv Pan, Writtick Chatterjee, Aamir Gani, Pradipta Pramanik, Aritra Chatterjee, B Amit, Sayan Ghosh, Ishan Porel, Kanishk Seth, Mukesh Kumar and Sourav Mondal.