The BCCI has rejected Cricket Association of Bengal's (CAB) request to defer two of its home matches because of the looming threat of Cyclone Dana. The CAB had asked to defer one game each of the Ranji Trophy and the Under-23 Col CK Nayudu Trophy, to be held in Kolkata and Kalyani respectively, by a couple of days.
The senior Bengal side is scheduled to take on Kerala at the Jadavpur University Campus 2nd Ground in Kolkata as the third round of the Ranji Trophy begins on Saturday, with the cyclone expected to make landfall and be at its most intense in Odisha and Bengal on Thursday and Friday.
The BCCI has scheduled a slightly longer gap between matches for this season, which may have given hope to the CAB of the request getting approved. Once the Bengal versus Kerala clash finishes on October 29, they will have almost a week before their next match, starting on November 6 in Bengaluru against Karnataka. The same will apply for Kerala who will travel back home, to Thumba, for their fourth-round fixture to host Uttar Pradesh from November 6.
The Bengal Under-23 side is scheduled to host Railways Under-23 from October 27 to 30 at the Bengal Cricket Academy Ground in Kalyani, just outside Kolkata, where the Bengal versus Bihar Ranji Trophy game was washed out completely a few days ago because of incessant rain. Their next fixture will be from November 8 to 11 in Nagpur against Vidarbha, which also means a week's gap.
The Bengal senior side will be without Abhimanyu Easwaran, Abhishek Porel and Mukesh Kumar for the next couple of rounds of the Ranji Trophy as they've been picked for the India A side for the shadow tour of Australia.