Vijay Hazare Trophy 2017/18: Manoj Tiway to Lead Bengal; Ishan Porel Included

India U-19 pacer, Ishan Porel, has been named in the Bengal squad for the upcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy 2017/18.

The right-arm pacer surprisingly went unsold in the IPL auction a couple of days back.

However, today, he made his mark in the semi-final contest against Pakistan and scalped four wickets for just 17 runs in six overs.

In fact, the first four wickets of Pakistan’s innings were taken by Porel only. It was just the third game played by Porel in the tournament, as he was ruled out for a couple of games after landing awkwardly while bowling in the first game against Australia. Team management had already called in Aditya Thakare as his backup.

Manoj Tiwary will continue to lead the Bengal team which has likes of Ashoke Dinda, Shreevats Goswami, Kanishk Seth and Amir Gani. Surprisingly, Dinda went unsold in the IPL auction, and this tournament is a chance for him to attract franchise, as he can always come in as a replacement for any player if needed.

The Bengal team also includes Vivek Singh, who got included in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy squad after making his comeback to the state. Veteran player, Anustup Majumdar to gets a place in the side.

Bengal will be going in the tournament as one of the strongest teams. In the previous season, the Manoj Tiwary-led side ended the tourney, as the runner-up before losing out to Vijay Shankar-led Tamil Nadu in a low-scoring encounter.

Tamil Nadu batsman, Dinesh Karthik, scored a century in the final to steer his side to a score of 217, which Bengal failed to chase down, as they were dismissed on 180.

Bengal will look to continue their good season. They qualified for the semi-final of Ranji Trophy before losing out to Delhi, whereas, also made it to the second round of Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

Bengal will be playing its first game of Vijay Hazare Trophy against Maharashtra on February 5. The team will then face Kerala (February 7), Uttar Pradesh (February 9), Delhi (February 11), Tripura (February 13) and Himachal Pradesh (February 17).

Bengal squad: Manoj Tiwary (captain), Sudip Chatterjee (vice-captain), Shreevats Goswami (wk), Abhimanyu Easwaran, Writtick Chatterjee, Anustup Majumder, Vivek Singh, Kanishk Seth, Ashoke Dinda, Sayan Ghosh, Mukesh Kumar, Aamir Gani, Pradipta Pramanik, Sumanta Gupta, Abhishek Raman and Ishan Porel.

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