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Sun, 20th Jan 2008  Mumbai: Selectors on Sunday sprang a surprise by leaving out former captains Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid from India's 16-member squad for the tri-series in Australia, which also involves Sri Lanka.
While Dravid was not in the Indian ODI team that played against Pakistan, Ganguly was a regular in the side since his comeback from the wilderness.
Meanwhile, despite rumours about his fitness and an alleged attitude problem, Yuvraj Singh remained deputy to skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
Virender Sehwag also retained his place in the 16-member squad for India's lone Twenty20 match against Australia, to be played ahead of the tri-series, which starts on February 3.
Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan and Munaf Patel will be on standby, BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah said.
"The three selectors here had a teleconference with two of their colleagues Ranjib Biswal and Venkatapathy Raju and Dhoni in Australia, after which the team was selected," Shah said.
Explaining reasons behind ignoring Ganguly and Dravid, Shah said, "The emphasis was on fielding abilities and they wanted a young fielding side for the series. That's why you see a lot of youngsters in the side."
A Board source said the selectors had an eye on the future and hence they decided to invest in youth, rather than sticking with the seniors.
"We also decided to have three players on standby so that in case of injuries to any players, we can fly them out to help the team," Shah said.
Squad: M S Dhoni (Captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh (Vice Captain), Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan, S Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Kaarthick, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar.
Standbye: Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan and Munaf Patel.  |
