 |
 |
| Zaheer Khan,Sreesanth |
Calcutta: With the first 11 picking itself and there being strong contenders for three of the remaining four berths (Subramaniam Badrinath, though, surfaced out of nowhere), the national selectors required as little as “10 minutes” to choose the 15 for the first two Tests against Sri Lanka.
“Actually, this afternoon’s meeting in Mumbai was a mere formality... It was almost a straightforward affair,” a well-placed source told The Telegraph.
Captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coach Gary Kirsten didn’t attend, even after the Team India practice session got cancelled, but both had conveyed their views to chief selector Krishnamachari Srikkanth on Monday night itself.
New-ball bowlers Zaheer Khan and Sreesanth are back, but the latter will have to wait to make the 11 Zaheer and Ishant Sharma are the absolute certainties there.
Ishant has kept his place, despite a poor run in limited overs cricket.
That Zaheer would be back and Sreesanth was very much in the frame had, in the past few days, been reported in these columns.
Ashish Nehra wasn’t on the selectors’ radar, but one learns he still informed Dhoni that he was “tired” and “needed a break.”
Srikkanth and his colleagues (Yashpal Sharma, Narendra Hirwani, Surendra Bhave, Raja Venkat) followed a conventional pattern in picking the 15 and, so, the idea of two new-ball bowlers in the reserves was done away with.
The reserves, not that it’s an official category, are: Murali Vijay (opener), Badrinath (middle-order), Pragyan Ojha (spinner), Sreesanth (new-ball bowler).
Mumbai’s Rohit Sharma, one gathers, will have to “get some runs” in domestic cricket before edging out Badrinath. Till then, the Tamil Nadu bat will get the preference.
Badrinath had been in the squad during the last Test series at home, against England, 11 months ago.
While the first Test against Sri Lanka is in Ahmedabad from November 16, the second, in Kanpur, is from November 24.
|
