Mongia, Mohanty included

Mumbai, January 29: The Board of Control for Cricket in India has included Nayan Mongia and Nikhil Chopra in the probables list announced ...

Mumbai, January 29: The Board of Control for Cricket in India has included Nayan Mongia and Nikhil Chopra in the probables list announced here on Monday for the Indian conditioning camp for the upcoming Australian tour after they were exonerated from the match-f-xing claims. Chairman of the selection committee, Chandu Borde and BCCI secretary Jaywant Lele also announced the three teams for the Hero Honda NKP Challenger Trophy to be held along side the training camp. The camp will be held from February 6-11 and 16-20 while the Challenger series will be held from Febryary 12-15 on a day-night format.

Interestingly, there are only two regular wicketkeepers, Mongia and Vijay Dahiya, who have been slotted in the India `A’ and India `Senior’ teams respectively. Manning the gloves for the India `B’ team, which will be led by Sachin Tendulkar, will be make-shift wicketkeeper Vikram Rathour. Young upcoming Ajay Ratra, who was part of the Challenger teams last year, was not considered according to Lele.

Selection committee chairman, Chandu Borde played it safe when asked about the type of wickets that the Indian board would prepare. He said that the Board was `experimenting’ on different types of wickets and will decide later. On the alleged dissatisfaction of Indian captain Saurav Ganguly over the venue of the training camp at Chennai, Lele said that Ganguly was present at the meeting and was satisfied.

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That the Indian board was clueless on the spin attack in the absence of spin head, Anil Kumble could be seen from the fact that seven spinners figure in the 25-member probable squad for the camp. Venkatapathy Raju comes out of wilderness to figure in the list. Debashis Mohanty, Rahul Sanghvi, Dinesh Mongia and Balaji Rao, all of them who have done well on the domestic circuit also merit a place in the list.

On the non-inclusion of players like Wasim Jaffer and Robin Morris, Borde said that since the Australians will be playing against Mumbai in Mumbai, we can have a look at their performance over here.

The Indian team for the first Test will be selected during the match between India `A’ and Australia from February 17 to 19.

Indian probables: Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, S Ramesh, SS Das, VVS Laxman, Dinesh Mongia, Hemang Badani, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Debashish Mohanty, Ashish Nehra, Venkatesh Prasad, Sarandeep Singh, Nayan Mongia, Vijay Dahiya, Rahul Sanghvi, Murli Kartik, Balaji Rao, Surinder Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Venkatpathy Raju, Sunil Joshi and Mohammad Kaif.

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Challengers Teams:
India Seniors: Saurav Ganguly (Captain), SS Das, Yuvraj Singh, Hemang Badani, VVS Laxman, Virendra Shewag, Vijay Dahiya (W-K), Ashish Kapoor, D Mohanty, J Srinath, Z Khan and S Joshi
India `A’: Rahul Dravid (Captain), S Ramesh, S Sriram, J Martin, R Sodhi, H Kanitkar, N Mongia (W-K), V Prasad, A Agarkar, I Siddique, R Sanghvi and Balaji Rao.
India `B’: Sachin Tendulkar (Captain), JP Yadav, M Kaif, Dinesh Mongia, Robin Singh, Amay Khurasia, Sarandeep Singh, Nikhil Chopra, Rakesh Patel, Surinder Singh, Dodda Ganesh and Vikarm Rathore (W-K).
Schedule: February 12: India Seniors vs India `A’; February 13: India Seniors vs India `B’; February 14: India `B’ vs India `A’; February 15: Final.>

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