Wriddhiman Saha,Cheteshwar Pujara

Calcutta: Cheteshwar Pujara, thus far seen as suited for cricket’s longer version only, has been named among the 30 probables for the 2011 World Cup.

That the 22-year-old was in the reckoning had, in fact, been reported in these columns on Saturday — the day Krishnamachari Srikkanth and his colleagues (Yashpal Sharma, Narendra Hirwani, Surendra Bhave, Raja Venkat) met in Mumbai.

Hirwani and Bhave were to have left for South Africa earlier in the week, but their departure got rescheduled to the early hours of Sunday, thereby allowing all five selectors to be present at the Cricket Centre.

While Hirwani and Bhave are going to return home at the end of the three-Test series, Yashpal and Raja will be on duty during the one-off T20 International and the five-match ODI series.

According to a well-placed source of The Telegraph, the probables have been picked “entirely” by the selectors. “There was no teleconference involving either the coach (Gary Kirsten) or (captain Mahendra Singh) Dhoni.”

Not that there’s scope for a major difference of opinion.

Srikkanth and Co. haven’t named anybody out of the blue, but Dinesh Karthik should consider himself lucky. Strictly speaking, he’s one of the four ’keepers, but it seems he’s been picked more for his batting.

Karthik can open the innings and bat down the order.

Like Karthik, leggie Piyush Chawla has made a ‘comeback.’ That ought to make Dhoni happy, for the time being, at least. For, talk is that whenever he has “asked” for the 21-year-old, the selectors haven’t been responsive.

Wriddhiman Saha is the lone representative from Bengal. Saturday, incidentally, is when the state bowed out from the 2010-11 Ranji Trophy, after losing to Railways by an innings.

The message: Manoj Tiwary and Ashok Dinda have to consistently script top-quality performances.

“Everybody has been selected on merit... Everyone has picked himself... There’s one more month to go to select the final 15... We’ll sit down and think calmly before finalising,” Srikkanth told the media.

Right now, what’s being debated is whether a second ’keeper should make the cut.