Shillong, Sep 17: The senior men’s selection committee of the Meghalaya Cricket Association has picked 12 domicile players along with five standbys for the first two matches in the prestigious Ranji Trophy 2024-25.
Meghalaya have qualified for an Elite Group this season after their phenomenal run in the Plate Group in 2023-24, where they were the runners-up to Hyderabad.
Meghalaya will first play Services away from 11 to 14 October before returning home to face Tripura from 18 to 21 October in Shillong.
Three spots among the 15-member squad for guest professionals are yet to be filled by the selectors. There are only a few changes to the list of names for this season, the selection of which has been made after a rigorous process when 30 players were shortlisted back in July. A couple of new faces are Arpit Bhatewara, who has been a regular at the club level in Shillong, and Roshan Warbah, who has been promoted from the U-25 team. Regular faces from last season’s Ranji campaign, such as stalwarts Kishan Lyngdoh, Dippu Sangma and Akash Kumar Choudhary, have been retained in the squad.
The team will have a new head coach in Prabhakar Bairgond, who was the Meghalaya U-23 women’s team trainer back in 2018-19 and has since qualified as a high performance coach.
The 12 Meghalaya domicile players selected for the first two matches are Aryan Borah, Akash Kumar Choudhary, Arpit Bhatewara, Bamanbha Shangpliang, Bijon Dey, Chengkam Sangma, Dippu Sangma, Jaskirat Singh Sachdeva, Kishan Lyngdoh, Ram Gurung, Roshan Warbah and Swarajeet Das. The five standbys are Adarsh Joshi, Anish Charak, Lerry G Sangma, Shembhalang Pyngrope and Yogesh Tiwari.
The support staff are Prabhakar Bairgond (head coach), Moisten Ch Marak (assistant coach), Surojit Biswas (physio), Vikash Singh Chauhan (trainer) and Dister Marbaniang (manager).
The above mentioned players and support staff will continue the preparatory camp in Cuttack until their departure for the tournament on 8 October.
