Arun Lal appointed as mentor of Bengal for Ranji Trophy

Former Bengal captain Lal, who represented India in 16 Tests and 13 ODIs, is a known face on TV as a cricket commentator. He successfully battled jaw cancer recently.

Seeing Bengal’s preparation for the upcoming Ranji Trophy going in the opposite direction after head coach Sairaj Bahutule’s absence from the probables' camp, CAB president Sourav Ganguly rang up former India opener Arun Lal to help the team up as a mentor.

"Sourav rang me up and asked if I could help the team and I said, it would be an honour,” Lal, who is holidaying in Italy told Sportstar. The 63-year-old, who played a key role in Bengal’s last Ranji triumph way back in 1991 will arrive on Friday and join the team as soon as possible.

Bengal began their pre-season camp under consultant VVS Laxman at Jadavpur University second campus ground as head coach Bahutule surprisingly did not show up.

There was no official statement from CAB about Bahutule but it is believed that the former India leggie who joined hands with Bengal in 2015 will remain as the head coach with Lal and Laxman playing the role of mentor and consultant respectively.

Lal, for his part, sounded confident of turning things around after Bengal's disappointing outing the Vijay Hazare Trophy. “It is a great honour where I can contribute to Bengal cricket in a meaningful way and I am pretty happy with the process. I just hope we can put it all together as a team,” Lal said.

Former Bengal captain Lal, who represented India in 16 Tests and 13 ODIs, is a known face on TV as a cricket commentator. He successfully battled jaw cancer recently.

The team and the support staff for the first two Ranji Trophy matches will be selected on October 26.

The team plays the first match as an away game against Himachal Pradesh and the second against Madhya Pradesh at home. The team is supposed to leave the base on October 29.