State Sports Minister Manoj Tiwari named in Bengal Ranji Trophy team

Veteran batsman Manoj Tiwary was on Monday included in Bengal’s 21-man Ranji Trophy squad, less than a year after making his political debut for the ruling Trinamool Congress party in the state.

The 36-year-old former Bengal captain, who is also the Minister of State for Sports and Youth Affairs in the Mamata Banerjee-led government, will be gearing up for his 17th year in first-class cricket.

Tiwari, who last played for Bengal in their Ranji final against Saurashtra in March 2020, joined TMC ahead of the assembly elections and won from Shibpur constituency defeating Rathin Chakraborty of BJP.

He missed the COVID-disrupted last season due to injury but was back on the Bengal side under Abhimanyu Easwaran.

Bengal, along with Vidarbha, Rajasthan, Kerala, Haryana and Tripura in Group B, will begin their campaign against Tripura in Bengaluru from January 13.

Bengal’s preparations for the premier first-class tournament have been hit with seven members including seven members testing positive for COVID-19 on Sunday.

Sudip Chatterjee, Anustup Majumdar, Qazi Junaid Saifi, Geet Puri and Pradipta Pramanik, who are among the six players who tested positive, have also been kept in the 21-member squad.

shaftAbhimanyu Easwaran (c), Manoj Tiwary, Sudip Chatterjee, Anustup Majumdar, Abhishek Raman, Sudip Gharami, Abhishek Das, Hrithik Chatterjee, Ritwik Roy Chowdhury, Abhishek Porel, Shahbaz Ahmed, Sayan Shekhar Mandal, Akash Deep, Ishan Porel, Mukesh Kumar, Qazi Junaid Saifi, Sakir Habib Gandhi, Pradipta Pramanik, Geet Puri, Neelkanth Das and Karan Lal.