Porel's International career as umpire may be over

Subroto Porel, the international cricket umpire from Bengal, is probably facing the end of his career as far as officiating in matches are concerned. Porel has recently been inducted as a senior selector in the Cricket Association of Bengal. Many see this as a demotion. Simply because Porel, as a selector, will not be able to stand in any first class matches. That in itself is enough to get him away from international cricket. Along with Porel, the brother of Saurav Ganguly, Snehasis has also been inducted into the senior selection committee. The other two members of the committee are former Test cricketers Ashok Malhotra and Pranab Roy. The former is the chairman.

Even though there has not been any official comment from the CAB, it is believed that Porel is being punished for declaring a match a couple of years ago at Nagpur as abandoned. That was the first one day match ever to be abandoned for improper pitch conditions. Many BCCI officials had then stated that Porel had called off the match without consulting the match referee and his partner. Since then, he has gone into oblivion as an umpire.

The two who have been discarded from the selection committee are Deepankar Sarkar and Amitabha Roy. While the former was excluded from the committee because his term had expired, the latter was sidelined because of disciplinary reasons. Roy had finished only one year out of his four.

Meanwhile CAB officials have informed that 30 probables will be selected immediately after the festive season in Calcutta ends on October 8. Bengal open their Ranji Trophy campaign with a match against Tripura on October 19.