Pankaj Roy – of course.
Gopal Bose – poor, unlucky Mr. Bose. And he, as coach, gave the world Sourav Ganguly and a plethora of others.
Arun Lal – Heard on IPL… “a soft corner for Kolkata? Me? I am all soft for Kolkata”. Honorary Bengali. Features as walking into the Kolkata Metro Rail in ‘Mile Sur Mera Tumhara’.
Sourav Ganguly – as captain. But he would captain the all-time India team too.
Ashok Malhotra – Not as much a Bengal man as Arun Lal, but he contributed with bucketloads of runs…
Shyam Sundar Mitra – Oft forgotten. The older ones say, he should have been a mainstay for India. A 50+ average testifies. But nobody from Bengal were taken into the India teams those days.
Probir Sen – Khokon Sen played quite a bit for India. Khokon Sen made people laugh. And Khokon Sen was, like Tim Zoehrer years later, a reasonable bowler. Sambaran Banerjee and Deep Dasgupta can stake a claim too. Saba Karim was never from Bengal.
Barun Barman – Had speed. A rare commodity.
Utpal Chatterjee – David-da was named so after Alan Davidson, when he used to be a medium pacer. Should have converted to left-arm orthodox much earlier.
Shute Banerjee – What an injustice!
Soumen Kundu – Again, the older ones say that this leggie from days of yore was quite brilliant. A sub-20 average testifies.
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On second thoughts, how can I keep the second best Indian left arm spinner of all time out of the team? Bye bye, David-da, welcome in, Dilip Doshi.
