Bhubaneswar: It was Govinda Poddar who led Odisha in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (T20) meet last month.
Now, it’s the turn of another senior pro Biplab Samantaray in the upcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy (50-over) competition.
The Odisha senior men’s selection committee chairperson Amiya Ray and head coach Dinesh Mongia announced a 16-member squad that will travel to Bengaluru for the Group A matches.
Poddar is part of the squad, as is Ranji Trophy skipper Subhranshu Senapati.
Last year, neither Biplab nor Govinda was part of Odisha’s initial Vihay Hazare Trophy squad, but both were called up midway through their campaign to lift the team’s performance. Odisha, however, failed to qualify for the knockotus.
Odisha will start their campaign with a match against Tripura on November 23 at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.
ODISHA SQUAD
Biplab Samantaray (Captain), Sandeep Pattanaik, Prabin Luha (WK), Anurag Sarangi, Prayash Singh, Subhranshu Senapati, Tarani Sa, Abhishek Raut, Harshit Rathod, Shantanu Mishra, Rajesh Mohanty, Govinda Poddar, Debabrata Pradhan, Abhishek Yadav, Kartik Biswal, Debendra Kunwar, Rakesh Pattanaik, Rajesh Dhupar (WK).
ODISHA’S SCHEDULE
* Vs Tripura – Nov 23 (Chinnaswamy Stadium)
* Vs Railways – Nov 25 (Alur Cricket Stadium II)
* Vs Kerala – Nov 27 (Alur Cricket Stadium II)
* Vs Saurashtra – Nov 29 (Chinnaswamy Stadium)
* Vs Pondicherry – Dec 1 (Alur Cricket Stadium I)
* Vs Sikkim – Dec 3 (Alur Cricket Stadium I)
* Vs Mumbai – Dec 5 (Alur Cricket Stadium III).
