The Indian selectors have decided to give off-spinner Harbhajan Singh the boot from the first two ODIs of the series to be played against England in October. In his place, off-spinner R Ashwin will lead the spin attack and he will have leg-spinner Rahul Sharma for company.
Indian Squad For England ODIs Announced, Harbhajan Singh Dropped
Harbhajan Singh dropped from the 15-member Indian squad for the first two ODIs against England.
Harbhajan Singh's poor form in England had led to the critics questioning his place in the side.
There has been one other maiden call-up in the 15-member squad, Karnataka medium pace bowler Sreenath Aravind has got the opportunity after doing well in the IPL last season.
The rest of the squad is similar to the one which had played England recently in the ODIs, with injuries obviously restricting the selectors from having too much experience in the line-up. There will be Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Munaf Patel, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma in the squad, all of whom had to pull out of the England series due to injury.
Among those who played in the World Cup earlier this year, Ashish Nehra, Yusuf Pathan and Piyush Chawla have also been ignored.
Gautam Gambhir will make it back to the squad after recovering enough from the concussion that he suffered on the tour of England. He had missed the qualifiers for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Champions League T20 but has led them in their first two games.
India host England in the five-match series that begins from October 14. The squad for the remaining three matches will be announced after the second game.
India squad for first two England ODIs:
MS Dhoni (captain and wicket-keeper), Gautam Gambhir, Parthiv Patel, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Ravindra Jadeja, Suresh Raina, Varun Aaron, R Ashwin, Vinay Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Rahul Sharma, S Aravind, Manoj Tiwary, Praveen Kumar
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