Left out

Kartik may consider himself hard done by but Kumble has also been in great form and has a good track record against Pakistan.

Skipper Saurav Ganguly, who missed the last two Tests against Australia, will lead the squad too, subject to a fitness test to be held in Kolkata on November 10, three days before the match.

Rahul Dravid attended Saturday’s selection meeting along with coach John Wright, fuelling speculation that Ganguly had been declared unfit.

Yet at the end of the meeting Shetty said Ganguly had already given a letter stating his fitness.

The real focus of the four-hours-plus meeting was the Test series against South Africa, scheduled to start in a fortnight’s time.

Hence the Board President’s XI team to play the Proteas from November 14-16 at Jaipur assumed significance. And this is where the selectors sprang a surprise, bringing back Tamil Nadu’s discarded left-handed Test match opener Sadagoppan Ramesh into the reckoning after almost a year.

The two openers added to the squad for the last Test, Gautam Gambhir and Dheeraj Jadhav, have also been named in the President’s XI squad.

For Ramesh though it’s a comeback after having featured in India’s tour of Australia last season but having since stayed in cold storage.

There was no place for Aakash Chopra and wicket-keeper Parthiv Patel. Dinesh Mongia and Hemang Badani get one more chance to put their names for selection, though the real fight is for the Test opener’s slot.

THE TEAMS

India: Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly (captain), VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Karthik (wk), Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Mohammad Kaif, Ashish Nehra, Sridharan Sriram.

Board President’s XI: Gautam Gambhir (Del), Dheeraj Jadhav (Mah), Sadagoppan Ramesh (TN), Hemang Badani (v-c, TN), Venugopal Rao (AP), Dinesh Mongia (Punj), Sairaj Bahutule (captain, Mumbai), Ramesh Powar (Mumbai), Shib Shankar Paul (Bengal), Amit Bhandari (Del), MS Dhoni (wk, Bihar), Suresh Raina (UP), Aavishkar Salvi (Mumbai), Joginder Sharma (Haryana).