Bhubaneswar: Senior batsman Govind Poddar is back at the help as he will lead a 15-member Odisha squad for the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 cricket tournament which will be played at Surat, November 8-17. The players have been selected for the first four games of Group E. Odisha play their first game against Jharkhand November 8. The next day they will take on the formidable Delhi side. Then after a gap of a day, Odisha will face minnows Sikkim and will follow it up with a game against Jammu and Kashmir November 12.
Odisha’s remaining two games in the group are against Saurashtra (November 14) and Gujarat (November 16). The top two teams from each group will qualify for the knockout stage.
The squad: Govind Poddar (captain), Subhranshu Senapati (vice-captain), Biplab Samantray, Arvind Kumar Singh, Abhishek Rout, Sandeep Patnaik, Suryakant Pradhan, Rajesh Mohanty, Debabrata Pradhan, Ankit Yadav, Papu Roy, Pravin Loha (wicket-keeper), Rajesh Dhupar (wicket-keeper), Shubham Nayak and Ashutosh Das.
PNN