Days after being granted bail in a sexual assault case, Abishek Porel has been named in Bengal’s Ranji squad

Controversial batsman Abhishek Porel was named in Bengal’s Ranji Trophy squad for the season opener against Delhi in Kalyani on Wednesday.

Porel was recently released on bail a case of rape and has been included in the Abhimanyu Easwaran-led squad to face Delhi in an elite Group C match to be played at Kalyani’s Bengal Cricket Academy Ground.

The season opener for Bengal has been shifted to Kalyani from the iconic Eden Gardens in Kolkata, which will host Prime Minister Narendra Modi to kick off the Durga Puja festivities starting at Mahalaya on October 10.

The team includes senior Indian pacer Mohammed Shami, Mukesh Kumar and Akash Deep, who is on the comeback trail and will be looking to prove his fitness and form ahead of the New Zealand tour.

Bengal and Delhi are in Group C along with Gujarat, Jharkhand, Kerala, Maharashtra, Odisha and Services.

platoon: Abhimanyu Easwaran (c), Sudip Kumar Gharami (vc), Sudip Chatterjee, Abhishek Porel (wk), Ankur Paul, Sumanta Gupta, Ankit Shukla, Subham Chatterjee, Mohammed Shami, Akash Deep, Mukesh Kumar, Suraj Sindhu Jaiswal, Adipam. Mandala.

Ready: Karan Lal, Akhilesh Yadav, Geet Puri, Abhishek KR. Raman, Subham Sarkar, Sumit Mohanta, Aditya Purohit.

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