After much back and forth, there is finally an official Bihar team that will play the 2024-25 season of the Ranji Trophy. The 20-member squad will travel to Rohtak for Bihar's opening game against Haryana starting October 11, but it was selected only after a lot of drama of the legal kind.
On August 5 this year, the Patna High Court had appointed Justice Shailesh Kumar Sinha as the ombudsman to oversee the affairs of the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA). Sinha subsequently re-appointed Amit Kumar - who had taken the matter to the court in the first place after being removed by current president Rakesh Tiwari - as BCA secretary and named a new selection committee. This committee, chaired by Zishan-ul Yaquin, selected a squad on October 7.
But on Tuesday, October 8, the Patna High Court stayed its August 5 order, thus making the selection committee's decision from October 7 null and void. It also meant that Kumar was not the secretary anymore, and the ombudsman was out. The squad, picked by a committee led by Madhusudan Tantubhai, announcement came on the back of these developments.
Speaking to ESPNcricinfo, Kumar said, "I respect the court's order, but after Dussehra [the Hindu festival on October 12], I will speak to my lawyer and if he agrees, I will take the matter to the Supreme Court."
The latest decision brings some respite to the Bihar cricketers, who were caught in the power struggle between former BCA secretary Kumar and current BCA president Tiwari. Even with under one week to go for the Ranji Trophy, two different training camps were conducted in Patna, similar to the incident in January 2024, when two teams from the two factions arrived for Bihar's game against Mumbai at Patna's Moin-ul-Haq Stadium. At the time, it needed intervention from the Patna High Court to put the official stamp on one of the squads.
Zishan, the chairman of the previous selection committee that had announced the now-cancelled squad, said, "I respect the court's decision. I was heading the selection committee only after the Lokpal [ombudsman] had given his order. I am happy that the dilemma of the players of Bihar has gone and finally they are going to Rohtak. I also like that many players from the team I had selected are also in this team. I have said it before and will say it again: I have nothing to do with any group; my aim is to make Bihar cricket better."
Meanwhile, the players who were in both squads have had to inform the BCA via email that they had no contact with Kumar and were not part of the camp organised by him. ESPNcricinfo has seen a copy of this mail.
Bihar are part of a tough Group C for the 2024-25 Ranji Trophy season, alongside Bengal, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. They finished last in Group B in 2023-24 with four defeats and three drawn games in seven matches.
Bihar squad for Ranji Trophy
Veer Pratap Singh (capt), Shakibul Gani (vice-capt), Bipin Sourabh, Akash Raj, Shraman Nigrodh (wk), Babul Kumar, Ayush Loharuka (wk), Raghwendra Pratap Singh, Mayank Choudhary, Himanshu Singh, Sachin Kumar Singh, Abhijeet Saket, Anuj Raj, Shakib Hussain, Shabbir Khan, Rishav Raj, Harsh Vikram Singh, Jitin Kumar Yadav, Yashpal Yadav, Rishi Raj