Bengal announces provisional squad for SMAT selection matches, major entities snubbed

The Cricket Association of Bengal announced a 25-member provisional squad for the upcoming Inter State Senior Men T20 Warm-Up matches. The eight-team tournament is all set to begin on August 19, 2023, and on the basis of the performance of the players in the tournament, they will get a place in the team for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. 

3 things you need to know 

• Plenty of big names are missing from Bengal's provisional squad for the Inter-State Senior Men T20 Warm-Up matches
• Manoj Tiwary will not play in the tournament as he earlier wished to represent the state in the Ranji Trophy 
• Abhimanyu Easwaran is likely to lead Bengal in the upcoming eight-team Inter State T20 tournament 

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Mukesh Kumar and Shahbaz Ahmed missing from Bengal's provisional squad 

Bengal last won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy back in the year 2011 and since then, the state could not lift the title. They are leaving no stones unturned to overturn their dismal run in the Indian domestic T20 tournament. However, as soon as the provisional squad for the Inter-State T20 tournament was announced, plenty of big names like Mukesh Kumar, Manoj Tiwary, and Shahbaz Ahmed were missing from the squad. 

Mukesh Kumar recently made his debut for the Indian cricket team in all three formats on the basis of his brilliant domestic and Indian Premier League 2023 performance. Mukesh has also shown a lot of promise in the bilateral series against West Indies and will also represent Team India in the 2023 Asian Games. The same goes for left-arm spinner Shahbaz Ahmed, as the premier RCB cricketer, will also represent the Men in Blue in the tournament beginning on September 23, 2023. 

However, before the big assignment, both players will also be part of the Indian cricket team for the three-match T20I series against Ireland. 

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Bengal provisional squad for Inter State Senior Men T20 Warm-Up matches

Abhimanyu Easwaran, Sudip Kumar Gharami, Ankur Paul, Aditya Purohit, Shakir Habib Gandhi, Ritwik Roy Chowdhury, Ompal Boken, Suvankan Bal, Agniv Pan, Ranjot Singh Khaira, Sandipan Das, Subham Sarkar, Saksham Chaudhary, Kanishk Seth, Ishan Porel, Md. Kaif, Debopratim Halder, Ravi Kumar, Akashdeep, Pradipta Pramanik, Vikash Singh, Prayas Ray Barman, Kaushik Maity, Karan Lal, Anurag Tiwari.