Bengal squad named for Santosh Trophy final round

Kolkata, March 17: Defending champions West Bengal on Saturday announced their 20-member squad for the final round of the national football championship for the Santosh Trophy starting from Monday at the Rabindra Sarovar and Howrah Stadium here.

Mohammedan Sporting's forward Jiten Murmu was named captain. Coach Ranjan Chowdhury has been ruing the lack of preparation ahead of the competition due to the players' participation for the Railways in an Inter-Railway tournament and also Mohammedan Sporting taking part in the Steel Express Football Tournament in Chakradharpur, Jharkhand last month.

West Bengal, 32 times champions, are in group A with Chandigarh, Manipur, Maharashtra and Kerala. They will take on Manipur in the opener on Monday.

West Bengal made the cut by winning their two Group B qualifiers against Chhattisgarh (2-0) and Jharkhand (2-0) in Patna.

Last year, the West Bengal team lifted the title for the 32nd time after Manvir Singh struck in the 119th minute for a 1-0 win over Goa, extending their domination in the premier domestic football tournament.

In the other group, Goa, Mizoram, Odisha, Punjab and Karnataka will fight it out for a place in the semi-final. The final is slated for April 1.

Ten teams who qualified from the preliminary stages have been divided into two groups of five teams each with the top two from each group advancing to the semi-finals which are to be played on March 30.

Bengal squad: Goalkeepers: Ranojit Majumdar, Laltu Mondal, Sandip Paul; Defenders: Tanmoy Ghosh, Ankit Mukherjee, Krishna Biswas, Manotosh Chakladar, Prosenjit Paul, Sourav Dasgupta Nabi Hossain Khan; Midfielders: Bidyasagar Singh, Sumit Das, Sujoy Dutta, Tirthankar Sarkar, Babun Das, Sanchayan Samaddar, Jagannath Oraon; Forwards: Rajon Barman, Jiten Murmu (captain), Sandip Bhttacharya.