Jamshedpur, Oct. 19: The battle for supremacy between Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) and Bihar Cricket Association (Patna) baffled the under-22 Bengal side in town to play Jharkhand in a CK Nayudu tie starting tomorrow.

Besides the team selected by JSCA, which will ultimately lock horns with the Bengal side, a 15-member squad of Bihar Cricket Association (Patna) arrived in the city this morning to play the match.

The players from Bihar sat outside the JSCA office with the dream of playing the match even as the request of the manager of the Bihar squad, Anand Mishra, to use the pitch for practice fell on deaf ears.

The team from Bihar had to return finally, but the officials of BCA (Patna) threatened to move the Supreme Court.

Speaking from Patna, A.N. Sharma, a senior functionary of BCA (Patna), told The Telegraph that the fixture for domestic tournaments released by the BCCI bears names of both Jharkhand and Bihar as participants.

“We had sent our team to Jamshedpur for playing Bengal. If the Bihar team is not allowed to play, we will be forced to move the apex court,” he said.

BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah, however, clarified that Jharkhand would play the board tournaments but players from Bihar with potential should also be included in the squad. If the Bihar cricketers are not included in the Jharkhand squad, the board would take action against the JSCA, Shah said.

The senior BCCI functionary also said that they had authorised JSCA president Amitabh Choudhary to look after the interest of both the states.

Sharma, however, cried foul when reminded that the BCCI had empowered JSCA earlier this month to conduct the board’s tournaments in Jharkhand and also allowed it to take a decision pertaining to selection of the teams to represent Jharkhand and Bihar in the matches.

“Had Jharkhand been serious about the development of cricket in Bihar, it would have included an experienced cricketer from our state in the selection panel. Shekhar Sinha from Patna has been made the chairman of the Ranji selection panel but he is not a member of the BCA (Patna). We demand a combined team from both the states for playing the domestic matches,” Sharma said.

Rubbishing the claims of the BCA functionary, JSCA secretary Rajesh Verma said Bihar should send an authorised body to participate in the board tournaments.

“BCCI has empowered JSCA through a letter, dated October 11, to conduct domestic tournaments and form teams. The board has said that this arrangement will continue till the dispute between BCA (Patna) and JSCA pending in Jharkhand High Court and Supreme Court was settled. There should not be any confusion now,” he said.

The senior functionary also said that the interest of Bihar cricketers had been kept in mind as far as team selection is concerned. Three players from Bihar —Abhay Ranjan, Anitesh Kumar and Kaushik Raj Singh — are in the under-22 squad, he added.

Match on

Giving a damn to controversies off the field, the Jharkhand and Bengal cricketers are gearing up to put up a stellar performance when they meet in the three-day under-22 league match of Col C.K. Nayudu Trophy.

Led by Ranji discard Sujit Roy, the Jharkhand team is keen on capitalising the experience of some of their players against Bengal, which boasts of some promising players. Both the outfits had strenuous sessions in the nets this morning.

“We are confident of doing well,” a member of the Jharkhand team management said.

The track, which, according to the curator, would assist the seamers in the first session, would ease down with the progress of the game.

Teams

Jharkhand: Sujit Roy (captain), Junaid Ali, Kaushik Raj Singh, Manoj Kumar Singh, Souvik Moitra, Abhishek Moitra, Saikat Roy, Rohit Singh, Raman Chakravorty, Shahnawaz Ansari, Dilip Singh, S.P. Gautam, Abhay Ranjan, Arvind Mishra and Anitesh Kumar.

Bengal: P.S. Bhattacharjee (captain), P. Dutta, Debopam Biswas, Arindam Ghosh, S. Ghosh, Subhojit Paul, Debobrata Das, Shubhojit Banerjee, Wriddhiman Saha, Sourav Sarkar, Sourav Roy, Soumya Roychowdhury, Debabrata Pal, Amit Banerjee and Avik Choudhury.