India ignore Sourav, Rahul for Champions Trophy
July 9, 2008
India’s cricket selectors Tuesday left out batsmen Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly for the ICC Champions Trophy tournament in September, raising doubts over the veterans’ one-day careers.
The former captains were not included among the 30 probables announced for the September 11-28 tournament in Pakistan, despite scoring more than 10,000 runs in one-day internationals.
Despite an impressive run earlier this year, birthday boy Ganguly and his long-time compatriot Dravid were ignored along with Venkatasai Laxman, apparently in keeping with the new “youth at all costs” policy that seems to have been adopted for limited overs teams.
Clearly, Sanath Jayasuriya’s heroics — at age 39 — for Asia Cup winners Sri Lanka did nothing to sway the Dilip Vengsarkar-led panel.
Sachin Tendulkar was the only one of the seniors to have found favour with the selectors, according to the names announced here on Tuesday by cricket control board secretary Niranjan Shah after the Test team for the tour of Sri Lanka was named.
Two prominent names dropped from the Test squad — Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan — however, found favour while Under-19 stars, skipper Virat Kohli (Delhi) and Saurashtra all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja were surprise call-ups. Indian Premier League performances too seem to have counted leading to the inclusion of Mumbai youngsters Abhishek Nayar and Ajinkya Rahane.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni is India’s one-day and Twenty20 captain, while veteran spinner Anil Kumble leads the Test side.
India’s Champions Trophy probables:
Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Rohit Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, Piyush Chawla, Rudra Pratap Singh, Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, Manpreet Gony, Pragyan Ojha, Parthiv Patel, Dinesh Karthik, Subramaniam Badrinath, Mohammed Kaif, Manoj Tiwary, Abhishek Nayar, Pankaj Singh, Murali Kartik, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Yusuf Pathan, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth.
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