Old out, new faces in Challenger teams

‘‘We are not unaware of his performances, there are other bowlers like SS Paul (also omitted) who have bowled well and taken more wickets’’, said Kiran More, chairman of the selection committee. ‘‘The doors are not shut on anyone and performance, fitness and not age of a player will be the criteria.’’

Others left out are Gagandeep Singh, Munaf Patel, Sairaj Bahutule, S Ramkumar and Ambati Rayadu, though the last-named had a poor season and is currently an unregistered player having shifted from Hyderabad to Andhra.

New faces include one-day specialists like Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan, Piyush Chawla, Manoj Tiwari and Sunny Singh. ‘‘We know where we are going,” assures More, ‘‘We have a few boys on our mind.’’

Anil Kumble and Ashish Nehra have been given time for rehabilitation while Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Dinesh Mongia have been given charge to lead India Seniors, India A and India B respectively. Sachin Tendulkar, after a long lay-off due to a recurring tennis elbow injury, figures in the India Seniors team.

The selectors have named 13 players in each side, instead of the usual 12 since the NKP Salve Trophy matches, to be played from October 10- 13 will be played under the new rules with the super-sub in action.

Teams:

India senior: Sourav Ganguly (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Y Venugopal Rao, M S Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, J P Yadav, Vidyut Shivaramkrishnan.

India A: V V S Laxman (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Hemang Badani, Neeraj Patel, Dheeraj Jadhav, Dinesh Kaarthick, Ramesh Powar, R P Singh, Laxmipathy Balaji, V R V singh, M Nadeem and Manoj Tiwari.

India B: Dinesh Mongia (capt), Shikhar Dhawan, Robin Uthappa, S Sriram, Sunny Singh, Satyajit Parab, Parthiv Patel, S Sreesanth, Ranadeb Bose, Amit Bhandari, Ravi Kant Shukla, Piyush Chawla, Srikumar Nair.