“Mr Wriddhiman Saha came to CAB and in an application to President Avishek Dalmiya sought the NOC from the association,” stated an association press release. “CAB gave concurrence to the request of Mr Saha and provided the NOC to him for playing for another state. CAB also wished him the very best for his future endeavours.”
It began in February, when CAB joint-secretary Debabrata Das issued a statement accusing Saha of giving “all sorts of excuses” to “skip” Ranji Trophy matches. This didn’t go down well Saha, who sought an apology that wasn’t forthcoming.
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However, Saha reiterated his stance and said that in case the dispute could not be resolved, he wanted a no-objection certificate to leave the state. With the matter being unresolved two months on, Saha finally decided to obtain an NOC.
While there are murmurs over Saha possibly taking up a role as mentor-cum-player with Tripura, they remain in discussion stage with neither party willing to make a comment at the moment. Earlier, Gujarat and Baroda, who were briefly linked as Saha’s potential teams, had categorically denied initiating talks.
Saha, 37, has played 122 first-class matches, scoring 6423 runs at an average of 41.98. So far, he has hit 13 centuries and 38 half-centuries. In his 40-Test career, he made 1353 runs at an average just shy of 30. The home Test series against New Zealand last December was Saha’s most-recent appearance in India colours.
While his immediate international future seems bleak, Saha is still contracted to IPL champions Gujarat Lions with whom he had an impressive season, scoring 317 runs in 11 innings at a strike rate of 122.39.
Shashank Kishore is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo
Source: ESPN Crickinfo