Cricket Association of Bengal on May 27 issued a statement confirming Wriddhiman Saha’s unavailability for the Ranji Trophy knock-outs in June. The veteran India wicketkeeper-batter is “not willing” to turn out for the state and is seeking an NOC to switch sides at the domestic level.
The Ranji Trophy knock-outs are set to kick-off on June 6, with Bengal, the Elite Group B winners, taking on Jharkhand in the quarterfinal face-off in Bangalore.
But the team will be without one of their senior pros in Saha, who had also opted out of the league stage in March, just days after he was told of his sacking from India’s Test squad.
“The Cricket Association of Bengal wanted Wriddhiman Saha to play for Bengal at this crucial juncture, especially when Bengal would be fighting in the knockout stage in a bid to win the Ranji Trophy after becoming the top-ranked team in the country at the end of the group stage.
I had expressed this to Wriddhiman and requested him to reconsider his decision. However, Wriddhiman has now communicated to us that he is not willing to play the Ranji Trophy knockouts,”
Avishek Dalmiya, the CAB president, said in a media statement.
Saha, who is currently going through his stint with Gujarat Titans in IPL 2022, would have had a less-than-a-week turnaround from the T20 league to the Ranji first-class matches for Bengal.
But the workload concern doesn’t look like the reason for the 37-year-old’s unavailability for the Ranji matches, as he has sought a NOC to leave the state association of Bengal.
“What to do? If he is that stubborn, we have to give him (the NOC). But nobody should try to arm-twist the state association, as it is bigger than any individual.”
a top CAB official told the Indian Express.
A senior member of the Bengal team coaching staff said they would have welcomed Saha in with open arms, but now that the experienced player has made his decision, they have to prepare for life without him.
Saha looks set to end his 15-year-long association with Bengal Ranji team after making his first-class debut with them in November 2007. His decision seems a direct byproduct of a controversy that began after his call to pull out of the Ranji Trophy league games in March.
Dropped by the selectors for the Test series against Sri Lanka – with head coach Rahul Dravid telling the player he will not be picked anymore – Saha opted out of the Group B matches for Bengal.
While the decision was perceived as a mark of disappointment and hurt on Saha’s part, the cricketer had said he wanted to be with his family at the time. But the decision had not gone down well with CAB joint-secretary Debabrata Das, who had said the player was making excuses to avoid his domestic team commitments.
Saha refused to directly address those remarks from Das but had publicly stressed on a family member’s illness as a major reason behind his ouster from the league matches. It seems, however, that the player felt badly hurt by the joint secretary’s comments.
He put those forward to Avishek, the CAB president, even as Bengal named him in their squad for the knock-outs in June. Indian Express quoted a top official saying, while CAB told Saha they have “disowned” the personal comments made by Das, the player didn’t budge over their assurance and went to the extent of seeking a NOC to switch states for the rest of his domestic career.
