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Bengal state cricket team is all set to start its upcoming Ranji Trophy season with a newly appointed captain. According to a RevSportz report, the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) is set to appoint its star batter, Abhimanyu Easwaran, as the new captain of the team for the 2026-27 Ranji Trophy season.
At least for the first match of the campaign, Easwaran will be seen as the captain of the Bengal cricket team against the Delhi cricket team in Kalyani. Bengal is scheduled to take on Delhi for the Ranji Trophy 2026-27 opener, starting on Sunday, October 11.
Abhimanyu Easwaran to lead Bengal against Delhi in Ranji Trophy 2026-27 match.
Easwaran, 31, a run machine in Indian domestic cricket, was with India's Test team a few months back, with the chance to make his Test debut for the national cricket team. Despite having a chance to receive his Test debut cap, the Indian team management, led by the head coach Gautam Gambhir, unceremoniously dropped the experienced batter from the Test squad and never picked him after that.
He travelled with the Indian cricket team extensively as a reserve or backup opening batter, but has remained uncapped as other players were preferred in the playing eleven. Currently, it seems like Abhimanyu Easwaran is not in Team India's scheme after the snub.
Notable career stats of Abhimanyu Easwaran
In the upcoming Ranji Trophy season, the top-order batter will like to show his class again with the bat. For Bengal, Abhimanyu Easwaran scored tons of runs and established himself as one of the most technically sound batters across the nation.
According to stats, he has 8564 runs in First Class cricket, playing in 116 matches and 198 innings, with a batting average of 47.31 and accompanied by 27 hundreds and 38 half-centuries. In 94 List A matches, the top-order batter has so far gathered 4,107 runs with an average of 46.14.
Easwaran last featured in the Duleep Trophy 2026 final match for the East Zone, against South Zone, to score 72 3 in the first and second innings of the match.
In 2025, the right-handed batter made a solid case for himself for the India A cricket team on the tour of England and domestic red-ball consistency. During the India A tour in England, Abhimanyu Easwaran scored around 167 runs in 4 innings with a batting average of 41.75.
Abhimanyu Easwaran will have to perform with extra responsibility
In the Ranji Trophy 2025-26, Easwaran's batting average was 42.70 as he registered 427 runs in 11 innings. In the previous season of the Vijay Hazare Trophy, his batting average was 35.71, and his batting average was 44.33 in the 2025-26 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, with an eye-catching strike rate of 152.00 for the Bengal cricket team.
In the upcoming season, it will be interesting to see how the experienced batter performs, as there could be a responsibility to lead the team. However, the squad and the roles can be changed after the beginning of the campaign.
Bengal squad: Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Sudip Kumar Gharami, Sudip Chatterjee, Abhishek Porel, Shakir Habib Gandhi, Ankur Paul, Sumanta Gupta, Ankit Shukla, Subham Chatterjee, Mohammed Shami, Akash Deep, Mukesh Kumar, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Pradipta Pramanik, Aamir Gani, Md. Kaif, Soumyadip Mandal, Karan Lal, Akhilesh Yadav, Geet Puri, Abhishek Kr. Raman, Subham Sarkar, Sumit Mohonta, Aditya Purohit
