Senior batsman Manoj Tiwary was on Friday re-appointed as Bengal skipper in absence of Abhimanyu Easwaran for their Ranji match against Delhi beginning on Monday.
Abhimanyu, who was appointed skipper at the beginning of the season replacing Tiwary, is travelling to New Zealand for India A commitments.
The Cricket Association of Bengal had requested Tiwary to lead Bengal and he has duly agreed to take the responsibility against Delhi which will be their last home outing of the season.
Tiwary became only the second batsman from Bengal to hit a triple century as his unbeaten 303 sealed a massive innings and 303 runs win over Hyderabad in their last match at Kalyani, which was their first home win of the season.
Delhi stunned defending champions Vidarbha by six wickets in a thrilling 347-run chase with Nitish Rana smashing a 68-ball unbeaten 105.
Their big win propelled Bengal (19 points from five matches) to third spot in the cross-pool.
Delhi are placed eighth in the standings with 16 points from five matches.
Bengal squad: Manoj Tiwary (captain), Shrevats Goswami (wk), Anustup Majumdar, Abhishek Raman, Koushik Ghosh, Arnab Nandi, Shahbaz Ahmed, Writtick Chatterjee, Mukesh Kumar, Akash Deep, Ayan Bhattacharjee, Shreyan Chakraborty, Kazi Junaid Saifi, Nilakantha Das and Sudip Gharami.
Acting DDCA president Bansal accused of interference
The Delhi Ranji squad that touched down in Kolkata for its away game against Bengal was mired in controversy after little-known fast bowler Ankit Beniwal was added as an extra member with allegations of interference on selection matters levelled against officiating president Delhi and Districts Cricket Association president Rakesh Bansal.
Incidentally, Bansal is the younger brother of former BCCI vice-president Sneh Bansal, who was removed from DDCA for round-tripping of association funds.
According to senior DDCA officials as well as those who close to selection committee, both coach Bhaskar Pillay and skipper Dhruv Shorey skipped the selection meeting as they didn’t want to be a part of this pick.
Delhi squad for the Bengal game features the return of left-arm seamer Pawan Suyal who had sustained groin injury during the Hyderabad game.
In another strange move, all-rounder Lalit Yadav, who is an integral part of the Ranji team and also landed his first IPL contract for big-hitting, has been relegated to the U-23 team in order to bring back the in-form Himmat Singh in the squad.
