Manoj Tiwary, minister of sports and youth affairs in the All India Trinamool Congress party, has been named in Bengal’s 21-member Ranji Trophy squad. His last First-Class appearance for Bengal was in Ranji Trophy 2019-20 final against Saurashtra in March 2020.

Tiwary joined the TMC political party ahead of the Assembly polls and won from Shibpur constituency beating BJP’s Rathin Chakraborty.

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Bengal, led by Abhimanyu Easwaran, are placed in the Elite Group B with Vidarbha, Rajasthan, Kerala, Haryana, and Tripura. The Group B match will be played in Bengaluru from January 13, and the team is scheduled to travel there on January 8.

They will face Mumbai in a two-day warmup game at CC&FC on January 6-7 before leaving for Bengaluru.

Their travel to Bengaluru could also be postponed after seven members of the Bengal Ranji Trophy squad - six players and a senior support staffer - tested positive for COVID-19, as reported by ESPNCricinfo.

“Keeping in mind the current pandemic situation, the Cricket Association of Bengal had conducted RT-PCR Tests of all Bengal cricketers as a safety measure,” CAB secretary Snehasish Ganguly said.

He added: “The results have come out and it has been found that certain players had tested positive. The CAB is taking all necessary precautions and actions in this regard.”

Squad: Abhimanyu Easwaran (c), Manoj Tiwary, Sudip Chatterjee, Anustup Majumdar, Abhishek Raman, Sudip Gharami, Abishek Das, Writtick Chatterjee, Ritwik Roy Chowdhury, Abhishek Porel, Shahbaz Ahmed, Sayan Sekhar Mondal, Akash Deep, Ishan Porel, Mukesh Kumar, Kazi Junaid Saifi, Sakir Habib Gandhi, Pradipta Pramanik, Geet Puri, Nilakantha Das, and Karan Lal.

(With PTI Inputs)