India trust on fresh legs to perform well in Twenty20 World Cup
Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly have been left out of the 30 probables that India's selectors picked for the Twenty20 World Championship to be held in South Africa in September.
"I got a call in the morning from Rahul (Dravid), and he said they (Sachin, Sourav and Rahul) will be opting out of this Twenty20 World Cup," said Dilip Vengsarkar, who is the chairman of the selection committee.
Vengsarkar said the decision of the three senior players was in the spirit of providing opportunity to youngsters.
"... No there is no reason as such... think they want to give a chance to youngsters too... That is why we have chosen a young team also...," he said.
Karan was the leading run scorer in the first National Twenty20 Championship held in April this year. He scored at a phenomenal average of 39.12 making his run tally at 313 runs in 10 matches at a strike rate of 107.93 id is definately one of the top contenders to get in the final squad of Twenty20 World Championship.
The probables not only include Irfan Pathan but also his elder brother Yusuf. Yusuf Pathan has consistently performed with both bat and ball for Baroda, and his ability to hit the ball hard might have convinced the selectors to include him in the list.
Anirudha Srikkanth, the son of India's dashing opener Kris Srikkanth, also finds a place in the list. Srikkanth did well in Tamil Nadu's triumph in the domestic tournament though V Devendran, who had an identical aggregate and average, did have a marginally higher strike-rate.
The selectors have included many players who have been dropped from the Indian team in the last one year. Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Suresh Raina, Irfan Pathan and Robin Uthappa will be in the reckoning to play in South Africa.
Twenty20 probables:
Virender Sehwag, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Karthick, Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir, Yousuf Pathan, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwary, Neeraj Patel, Karan Goel, Cheteshwar Pujara, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Joginder Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Harbhajan Singh, Ramesh Powar, Rajesh Pawar, Niranjan Behera, Anirudha Srikkanth, Praveen Kumar.
posted by Pradeep @ 7:52 AM,
