Team for Sri lanka series announced, Sehwag, zaheer make comeback
Mumbai. Virender Sehwag and Zaheer Khan make a comeback, while all-rounders Ravindra Jadeja, Yusuf and Irfan Pathan and Praveen Kumar have been dropped from the Indian team heading to Sri Lanka later this month for a five-match One-day series and a Twenty20 International. Top-order batsman Ajinkya Rahane, who was unfortunate to miss out on the Asia Cup in March this year, is back in the team. Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar decided to skip the tour.
The national selection committee, which met on Wednesday also picked the squad in a meeting on Wednesday, also decided to include Umesh at the expense of Praveen Kumar.
“We have the best available team. Sachin is not available. I think it is a very good side which has very strong batting line-up and good bowlers and we are confident that it will do well in Sri Lanka,” chairman of selection committee Krishnamachari Srikkanth told reporters after announcing the squad.
There was no place for feisty off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, who endured indifferent form during the IPL and has now signed up with English county side Essex, as the selectors continued to ignore him while Rahul Sharma was retained in the side. The team will thus have three spinners on low-bouncing and spinning tracks in Sri Lanka.
The team will also have seven specialist batsmen, four seamers and a wicketkeeper in captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The team has endured poor results since the second half of last year, having been whitewashed in the Test series in England and Australia before failing to make the finals of the Asia Cup.
“It is a long season ahead and I think we will come back to winning ways. Sachin wants to extend his career. He must be aiming at England and Australia (series later this year). He is spacing it out very well,” said Srikkanth.
“I don’t really want to dwell on whys, they are difficult. We should look at what has been selected,” he said.
The rest of the squad remains the same with the selectors retaining Virat Kohli as vice-captain, a position that the Delhi youngster took from opener Gautam Gambhir during the Asia Cup.
Squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virat Kohli (vice-captain), Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir, R Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Ashok Dinda, Suresh Raina, Vinay Kumar, Rohit Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Ajinkya Rahane, Manoj Tiwary, Rahul Sharma.
