Indian batting great VVS Laxman has been retained as the batting consultant of Bengal while Laxmi Ratan Shukla has been appointed as Under-23 coach, making his return to cricket six years after joining the politics.

Having retired from all forms of cricket in 2015, former Bengal skipper Shukla joined Trinamool Congress a year later. It will be his second innings in cricket.

Shukla had become an MLA from Howrah (North) and later served as the sports minister. He was later made the Howrah district president of TMC but just before the last Assembly Polls, he quit politics to “concentrate more on cricket”.

“Let’s work together. Looking forward,” Shukla said about his return to cricket.

The Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) also retained veteran Arun Lal as the chief coach and promoted Sourasish Lahiri as the assistant coach of the senior side.

Former Bengal speedster Shib Shankar Paul was named the bowling coach for all the Bengal squads.

“On behalf of the Association, I wish the Former Cricketers who have been given newer responsibilities all the best and am confident that they would be able to use their wealth of experience to help Bengal Cricket earn laurels in the forthcoming domestic season,” CAB president Avishek Dalmiya said in a statement.

As far as women’s cricket is concerned – Rituparna Roy would be the head coach while Charanjit Singh would be the assistant coach of the Bengal senior team.

“We have made some new appointments keeping in mind their merit and talents. We want Bengal cricket to shine and we have made changes that we deemed fit to that end,” said CAB Secretary Snehashis Ganguly.

“We wish the new appointees all the best and hope they can get the best out of the various Bengal teams.”

(With PTI inputs)