Wriddhiman Saha controversy: Wicketkeeper batsman says he will not play for Bengal in Ranji Trophy

Kolkata, May 27: Wriddhiman Saha will not be a part of the Bengal squad for the Ranji Trophy quarterfinal match against Jharkhand, beginning in Bengaluru from June 6.

Saha, as per a release from the Cricket Association of Bengal, has told the CAB that he was not willing to play for the state in the Ranji Trophy knockouts.

“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 had requested him to reconsider his decision. However, Wriddhiman has now communicated to us that he is not willing to play the Ranji Knockouts,” said CAB president Avishek Dalmiya in the CAB press statement.

The controversy has been snowballed earlier this year when Saha cited family issues to skip the Bengal’s group stage Ranji Trophy matches. It was also around the same time Saha was dropped from the Indian Test squad and the team management had conveyed to him that the wicketkeeper batsman in future will not be considered for selection to Team India.

The whole episode opened a can of worms as Saha accused a journalist of threatening him to give an interview, and at the end of it the scribe was banned by the BCCI for a couple of years.

The decision of Saha had not gone down well with CAB top brass, especially secretary Debabrata Das as he had openly criticised the cricketer for skipping Bengal matches under some pretext or other.

Saha had met Dalmiya to iron out the disputes but nothing much has been came out of the parley.

However, Saha will be seen in action on Sunday in the IPL 2022 Final for the Gujarat Titans. Saha has opened for the GT in the IPL 2022 so far and has considerable success too.