PTI

Ganguly to lead East Zone

The East zone selectors named Sourav Ganguly as captain for the forthcoming Duleep Trophy, even though a question mark hangs over his participation in the zonal tournament

PTI
08-Oct-2005


The Duleep games could provide valuable match practice © Getty Images
The East zone selectors named Sourav Ganguly as captain 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 Challengers' tournament with an elbow problem, has to appear before John Gloster, the Indian team physio, and Anant Joshi, the BCCI medical panel chief, in Mumbai on October 17 for a reassessment of his fitness.
Ganguly, who has been diagnosed with a "mild tennis elbow symptom", has been ruled out of competitive cricket for ten days but Joshi made it clear that his affliction was not similar to what Sachin Tendulkar has been bogged down with. "Ganguly's tennis elbow problem does not seem as bad as Sachin's," Joshi told PTI. "We will reassess the elbow after ten days of complete rest and then decide on further course of action."
Even if Ganguly is cleared by the duo, he has to attend the Indian team's conditioning camp from October 19 to 21, which will precede the one-day home series against Sri Lanka that begins on October 25 and continues upto November 12. This would rule 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.
Saradindu Pal, the East Zone selection committee convenor, 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 queried if the board would 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," he said. "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."