Marching Orders

Harbhajan dropped for the first two ODIs against Eng; Rahul Sharma,S Aravind new faces.

Harbhajan Singh has been left out of the Indian team for the first two ODIs against England. During the England tour,Harbhajan strained an abdominal muscle and didnt feature in the last two Tests or in the ODI series that followed. Poor form in the first two Tests in which he took only two wickets for 287 runs and R Ashwins growing influence in the ODI bowling attack,seem to have combined to loosen Harbhajans grasp on the limited-overs off spinners slot.

Harbhajan has 259 wickets in 229 ODIs at 33.40. His last ODI outing was during the West Indies tour,where he took four wickets in three matches at 26.75,and was Indias most economical bowler,conceding 3.56 runs an over.

The Kris Srikkanth-led selection panel,with a new North Zone representative in Mohinder Amarnath,picked a 15-member squad with a clear emphasis on youth. This was inevitable to an extent,with injuries ruling out Sachin Tendulkar,Virender Sehwag,Yuvraj Singh,Rohit Sharma,Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel among others. But the selectors ignored five other World Cup winners with no fitness issues Harbhajan,Sreesanth,Yusuf Pathan,Ashish Nehra and Piyush Chawla.

Apart from Ashwin,the selectors picked a second spinner in the form of the uncapped Punjab leggie Rahul Sharma. The 24-year-old has modest figures in first class cricket,with only 16 wickets in nine matches at 43.12,but caught the eye during the IPL,where his performance 16 wickets at an economy rate of under six an over was a rare bright spot in an abject debut season for Pune Warriors. Both Rahul and Ashwin are capable of scoring runs lower down the order and filling Harbhajans slot at number eight. Rahuls inclusion meant there was no place for Amit Mishra or Pragyan Ojha.

With regular ODI pacers Zaheer and Munaf out with long-term injuries,the selectors went for a pace attack with a decidedly raw look to it,with Praveen Kumar the only real experienced face. Varun Aaron,who was in the squad in England but didnt play any of the ODIs,kept his place,as did Vinay Kumar.

But the selectors left out RP Singh and gave the left-arm seamers slot to Karnatakas Sreenath Aravind,who took ten wickets for South Zone in two Duleep Trophy matches,and was also among the highest wicket-takers during the IPL,with 21 scalps for Royal Challengers Bangalore. Vidarbhas Umesh Yadav,who played three ODIs in Zimbabwe last year and was last called up during the South Africa tour,returns to the squad to complete the pace attack.

The batting wears a similar look to the ODI leg of the England tour,with the only major change being the return of Gautam Gambhir in place of S Badrinath.

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The squad: MS Dhoni captain,Gautam Gambhir,Parthiv Patel,Ajinkya Rahane,Virat Kohli,Suresh Raina,Manoj Tiwari,Ravindra Jadeja,Ravichandran Ashwin,Rahul Sharma,Praveen Kumar,Varun Aaron,Umesh Yadav,Vinay Kumar,Sreenath Aravind.

Challenger teams named

Meanwhile,Harbhajan has been named skipper of the India Green team for the NKP Challenger Trophy to be played in Nagpur from October 10 to 13. S Badrinath and Gautam Gambhir will lead India Blue and Red,respectively.

Squads: India Blue: S Badrinath capt,M Vijay,Paul Valthaty,Manish Pandey,Dinesh Karthik wk,Mandeep Singh,Saurabh Tiwary,Irfan Pathan,Amit Mishra,Pragyan Ojha,YV Krishanatry,Prashant Parameshwaran,Pradeep Sangwan,Tanmay Srivastava; India Green: Harbhajan Singh capt,Robin Uthappa,S Anirudha,T Suman,Mohnish Mishra,Ishank Jaggi,Mohammad Kaif,CM Gautham wk,Sarabjit Ladda,Iqbal Abdulla,Abhimanyu Mithun,Samad Fallah,Ishwar Choudhary,Sumit Narwal

India Red: Gautam Gambhir capt,Shikhar Dhawan,Abhinav Mukund,Ambati Rayudu,Ashok Menaria,Wriddhiman Saha wk,Jalaj Saxena,Piyush Chawla,Bhargav Bhatt,Pankaj Singh,Jaydev Unadkat,TP Sudhindra,Yusuf Pathan,RP Singh