Bengal movie community calls for protests

A body representing West Bengal's film-making community has thrown its weight behind Sourav Ganguly by appealing to the public to not attend the fourth one-dayer between India and South Africa at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata. Ganguly's omission from the one-day side first and then subsequent removal from captaincy in Tests has provoked outrage in his home state, but the film-makers' appeal to boycott might not be successful, as a member of the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) told the Kolkata-based Telegraph that ticket sales had been satisfactory.

Actors Biplab Chatterjee and Rupa Ganguly of the West Bengal Motion Picture Artists' Forum asked for an inquiry to be initiated into the manner in which Ganguly was dropped, and sent a memo to Rahul Dravid, the new Indian captain, Kiran More, the head of selectors, and Gautam Dasgupta, the BCCI secretary. However, Dasgupta said that no such memo had reached his notice, and played down the protests by saying that they did not concern the board.

Security arrangements for cricket matches in India are heavy and omni-present, but whether their presence will be beefed up for the forthcoming match in light of the protests remains to be seen. A senior CAB official said, "Police are aware of such protests, but I'm yet to get information about any extra security for them."