Abhimanyu Easwaran | Twitter
Cricket Association of Bengal on Thursday (August 29) announced Abhimanyu Easwaran as captain across all formats for the upcoming Indian domestic season, replacing veteran Manoj Tiwary at the helm of affairs, with Sudip Chatterjee finalised as his deputy.
Tiwary, who has played 12 ODIs and 3 T20Is for the country, led Bengal for four years since taking over the job from Laxmi Ratan Shukla in the 2015-16 season. The state team's best performance under him came when it reached the semi-finals of the 2017-18 Ranji Trophy.
It is learnt, the CAB, led by president Sourav Ganguly, wanted to split the captaincy responsibilities for red and white-ball formats, and gave Tiwary the option of leading the team in Vijay Hazare Trophy and Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 and Easwaran the promotion as skipper for the Ranji Trophy.
But Tiwary declined the offer, wanting to focus more on his batting, and backing Easwaran for leadership duties in the coming season.
"The selectors initially had thought of a split captaincy where they looked at the option of having Abhimanyu Easwaran lead the team in four-day format, while Manoj Tiwary will continue in 50-over and T20s," CAB Joint Secretary Avishek Dalmiya was quoted as saying by PTI.
"We had discussed this with Manoj (Tiwary) and he feels that it is important for him to concentrate as a player right now. Manoj, whose contribution to Bengal cricket both as skipper and player remains invaluable, assured to guide Easwaran in his job as one of the senior colleague of the team."
Prolific domestic run-getter and India 'A' regular, Easwaran's first assignment as captain will be the pre-season tournament in Jaipur from September 3, for which also the squad was announced on Thursday.
The domestic season begins for Bengal with the Vijay Hazare Trophy followed by the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20s.
Bengal is placed in Elite Group A of the Ranji Trophy alongside Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Vidarbha, Hyderabad, Delhi, Rajasthan, Punjab and Kerala - the team's opponent for the first fixture from December 17.
(Inputs from PTI)
