Ganguly to lead East Zone

The East Zone selectors on Friday named Sourav Ganguly as skipper for the forthcoming Duleep Trophy, even though a question mark hangs over his participation in the zonal tournament.

Ganguly, ruled out of next week's Challenger series with an elbow problem, has to appear before team India physio John Gloster and BCCI medical panel chief Anant Joshi in Mumbai on October 17 for a reassessment of his fitness.

Even if Ganguly is cleared by the duo, he has to attend the Indian team's conditioning camp from October 19 to 21, which precedes the one-day home series against Sri Lanka beginning October 25 and continuing up to November 12.

This rules him out of East Zone's first two Duleep Trophy engagements versus North Zone from October 20 to 23 and Zimbabwe from November 4 to 7.

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East Zone selection committee convenor Saradindu Pal, however, argued that Ganguly was included in the squad as he wanted to play the first match and as per the Board rules a cricketer recovering from injury has to turn out in a tie in a BCCI-organised tournament before being selected for international engagements.

But when it was pointed out whether the Board will allow Ganguly to skip the camp and play the Duleep, Pal admitted that they had not got in touch with the Board on this.

"We have not spoken to the Board. Since he cannot play the Challenger, we thought it will be better for him to play the Duleep," Pal, also the Joint Secretary of the Cricket Association of Bengal, told PTI.

"We had asked Sourav whether he would play. He said, yes. So, we included him. Of course, he can turn out provided he is fit," he said.