Two professional cricketers have been nominated so far as candidates for the upcoming West Bengal assembly polls -- one played for India, while the other narrowly missed out on representing the country. A third cricketer has also been offered a ticket but is still mulling his options.
Fast bowler Ashok Dinda, who played 13 ODIs and 12 T20Is for India from 2009 to 2013, has been fielded again by the BJP from the Moyna constituency. In the 2021 assembly polls, Dinda helped the BJP wrest the seat, defeating the sitting TMC MLA Sangram Dolui by 1260 votes.
Dinda's best performance in an India shirt came in a T20I against Sri Lanka in Kandy in 2012 when he grabbed 4/19 to close out a 39-run victory as the hosts were rolled over for 116. He was also as dependable as it gets for Bengal in domestic cricket, being the second highest wicket-taker for the state in the Ranji Trophy behind only Utpal Chatterjee.
Fellow pacer and Dinda's ex-Ranji teammate Shib Shankar Paul is the other cricketer to be nominated. He will be making his electoral debut from his hometown of Tufanganj as a TMC candidate.
Paul has been assigned the task of regaining the seat for the TMC whose candidate Pranab Kumar Dey was defeated by the BJP's Malati Rava Roy in 2021 by over 31,000 votes.
Paul, who took 220 wickets in first-class cricket at a decent average of 24.95, was part of the Indian Test squad twice -- for the Mumbai Test against Australia in October 2004, as well as the two-Test series against Bangladesh in December the same year -- but missed out on playing international cricket.
Meanwhile, a third cricketer is yet to decide on whether to throw his hat in the ring -- Manoj Tiwary who played two Ranji Trophy finals for Bengal, one alongside Dinda and the other alongside Paul.
Tiwary is a sitting MLA who won the Shibpur seat for the TMC in 2021 and is also the current Minister of State for Youth Affairs and Sports.
Interestingly, he's not the first international cricketer to be in charge of that ministry in West Bengal. Laxmi Ratan Shukla, who won the 2016 assembly election from Howrah Uttar on a TMC ticket, had previously held the post in Mamata Banerjee's second government.
The TMC sprang a surprise on Tiwary by not renominating him for the upcoming polls, instead fielding Rana Chatterjee as its candidate from Shibpur. Speaking to the media, a disappointed Tiwary admitted that he was hurt by the party's decision to drop him.
It may have brought back an unhappy memory from his international career when he was dropped from the ODI team despite making a century against the West Indies in 2011. Braving the Chennai heat and humidity, Tiwary made 104 before being forced to retire hurt and was named the Man of the Match. However, he was left out for the next 14 matches, which he said killed his confidence.
Ill-luck had also cost Tiwary on an earlier occasion when he was set to make his Test debut against Bangladesh in 2007 but dislocated his shoulder on the eve of the match. He never got another opportunity to showcase his ability for India in the longest format of the game.
Tiwary, however, is not short of opportunities in the political arena as the BJP promptly approached him with the offer of a ticket. He has said that he will speak to his wife before taking a call. It remains to be seen whether his old colleague Dinda will give him a nudge in the direction of the saffron camp.