Sharandeep, Dahiya named for Delhi Test; Saba Karim, Prasad dropped

Delhi wicketkeeper Vijay Dahiya and Sharandeep Singh have been picked up to replace Saba Karim and Venkatesh Prasad in the 14-member Indian squad to take on Zimbabwe in the first Test starting at the Ferozeshah Kotla in the Capital on Saturday.

These two were the only changes from the Indian team that notched up a comprehensive nine-wicket win over debutants Bangladesh in the latter’s inaugural Test in Dhaka yesterday.

BCCI secretary J Y Lele said the choice was between Harbhajan Singh and Sharandeep Singh, both offies from Punjab, but did not clarify why the latter was preferred to the more experienced Harbhajan Singh.

Perhaps, the disciplinary problems he had run into at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore earlier this year, went against Harbhajan whose bowling action, too, had come under ICC scrutiny a couple of years ago.

The national selectors who met here during the second day of the Board President’s XI -Zimbabwe match, appeared satisfied with the pace attack of Javagal Srinath, Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan and decided to add an off-spinner to the existing left-arm spin duo of Sunil Joshi and Kartik.

Lele said the team for the second and final Test at Nagpur would be selected during the Delhi Test.

The Indian team will assemble in Delhi on Thursday and new coach, John Wright of New Zealand, who has already arrived, will take charge of them straight away.

The 14-member team: Saurav Ganguly (capt), S S Das, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, S Ramesh, Vijay Dahiya, Ajit Agarkar, J Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Sharandeep Singh, Murali Karthik and Sunil Joshi.