Calcutta: The squad for Bengal's next Ranji Trophy game, versus Odisha from November 23 at Kalyani, was announced on Thursday and once again, Laxmi Ratan Shukla finds himself in the cold.

For the record, left-arm spinner Anurag Tiwary, who was part of the Bengal Under-23 squad, has been brought in place of Parthasarathi Bhattacharya as a turning track is expected.

Apparently, the powers that be in the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) had categorically indicated to Shukla, who sustained an injury during Bengal's opening match of the season against Karnataka, that he would be needed for the last two matches. In fact, the selectors, too, in the recent past had more or less confirmed the all-rounder's return to the squad for Bengal's last two group-stage matches against Odisha and Assam. But surprisingly he continues to be sidelined for not being "match fit."

However, it needs to be mentioned that none from the Bengal senior team support staff, including the physio, wanted to speak about Shukla's fitness. "Maybe they have been instructed not to speak, since it could snowball into a major controversy," said a CAB insider.

So what's CAB president Sourav Ganguly's take on Shukla's exclusion? "Laxmi has to be match fit. He needs to play a competitive match first before being included in the Bengal team," said Sourav.

The former India captain also cited the recent performances of the Bengal players, which according to him, only suggests that it is difficult to bring Shukla back in the current set-up. "Almost everyone in the team seems to be playing well. So, in whose place do we bring back Laxmi? We can't include him in the squad and keep him among the reserves," Sourav reasoned.

As things stand, Shukla has to first play an AN Ghosh Trophy match and prove he is match fit, and only then can be reinstated into the Bengal squad. Interestingly, the tournament hasn't started yet.

Incidentally, Shukla was supposed to travel with the team to Pune and train before the match against Maharashtra. But that did not happen.

Sourav is absolutely right with his views, but one also has to see Shukla's contribution to Bengal cricket across all the formats over the last few years. Had it not been for his timely contributions with both bat and ball, Bengal, in all likelihood, wouldn't have made their stunning progress to the Ranji semi-finals in 2013-14.

Shukla refused to comment, but one of the senior CAB officials said: "With everything that has been happening lately, don't be surprised if Shukla is not brought back at all... Also, Shukla taking a drastic step, too, cannot be ruled out."

It remains to be seen if Shukla too follows in the footsteps of former teammates like Arindam Das, Arindam Ghosh, Anustup Majumder and Arnab Nandi. Ghosh, Majumder and Arnab have switched their allegiance to Railways.

Das's performance though has dipped further since he joined Tripura before the start of this season. The other three, however, did have their share of contributions for their team. In fact, Ghosh is one of the most reliable batsmen for the Railways team.

As for Shukla, he has said time and again in the past that representing Bengal is his pride and playing for Bengal is his biggest motivation.

However, there cannot be different set of rules for different players. This season itself, opener Abhimanyu Easwaran was included in the squad as soon as he recovered from an injury suffered during one of the Ranji matches.

Now that a precedent has been set, one hopes the CAB, which has Sourav at the helm, will keep this in mind in case of other players coming in from injury lay-offs.