Balaji

Calcutta: Speedster Lakshmipathy Balaji will return to action after nearly five months lay-off due to injury. The pacer, who had to leave Team India?s Champions Trophy campaign mid-day in September due to a groin injury, has been named in the India seniors? side for the N.K.P. Salve Challenger Trophy to be held in Mumbai from Monday to February 10.

The teams were announced by BCCI joint secretary Goutam Dasgupta at the CAB on Thursday. Present in the meeting were the five selectors ? chairman Kiran More, Yashpal Sharma, Pranab Roy, V.B. Chandrasekhar and Gopal Sharma.

Finding a berth in India B was wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel, who was dropped after the Nagpur Test against Australia in November.

Meanwhile, Bengal would be represented by Rohan Gavaskar and Shib Shankar Paul apart from Team India captain Sourav Ganguly. Both Gavaskar and Paul have been included in the national B side while Sourav will lead the India seniors? side.

However, speedster Ranadeb Bose failed to find a team despite his 54 scalps for the season ? including his five for 49 against West and four for 40 against South Zone in the Deodhar Trophy.

According to Dasgupta, Bose?s name did come up for discussion but ?there?s number of pace bowlers around, so he wasn?t considered.?

[In fact, the day didn?t begin well for Bose who suffered a bruise following an accident near Park Circus.]

Incidentally, wicketkeeper-batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni (another representative from the East) has been included in the seniors? team.

Rahul Dravid and Virender Sehwag will lead India A and B sides, respectively.

Dasgupta informed that Sachin Tendulkar and Harbhajan Singh?s name wasn?t considered as the batting maestro was recovering from a left-elbow injury while the off-spinner would be in Australia to work with bio-mechanics expert Bruce Elliot during that period.

India Senior

Sourav Ganguly (captain), Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Y. Venugopal Rao, Neeraj Patel, Anil Kumble, Irfan Pathan, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Gagandeep Singh, Rajesh Powar, Shikhar Dhawan.

India A

Rahul Dravid (captain), Dinesh Karthik, S.S. Parab, Dheeraj Jadhav, Mohammed Kaif, Dinesh Mongia, Murali Kartik, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, R.P. Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Robin Uthappa.

India B

Virender Sehwag (captain), Parthiv Patel, Gautam Gambhir, V.V.S. Laxman, S. Sriram, Rohan Gavaskar, Ramesh Powar, Joginder Sharma, Ashish Nehra, S.S. Paul, Amit Bhandari, Ambati Rayudu.