Calcutta: Sachin Tendulkar, Little Master II, is available for the three-match ODI series against South Africa.

“I’m definitely available,” Sachin, who’d opted out of the tri-series in Bangladesh last month, told The Telegraph on Monday.

That remains India’s last engagement in ODIs.

The selectors will be meeting here on Tuesday to pick XV for possibly all three ODIs — in Jaipur (February 21), Gwalior (February 24) and Ahmedabad (February 27).

According to well-placed sources, Yuvraj Singh’s availability wasn’t known till late on Monday. A wrist injury has kept him out of the ongoing two-Test series.

If Yuvraj isn’t fit, then Abhishek Nayar or Yusuf Pathan could benefit. Young Manish Pandey’s name is also doing the rounds.

The selectors, one learns, are in the dark, but lead spinner Harbhajan Singh is understood to have informed the Board that he wouldn’t be available for the first two ODIs, owing to a wedding in the family.

Tamil Nadu’s Ravichandran Ashwin, an all-rounder who bowls off-spin, may well take Harbhajan’s place.

Meanwhile, it’s not clear whether Sreesanth, coming off an injury, is going to be in the XV. There’s some uncertainty over Ishant Sharma as well.

The certainties are: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag (vice-captain), Sachin, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Sudeep Tyagi.

Footnote: The buzz is that a “communication gap” has developed between the team management and the quintet headed by Krishnamachari Srikkanth. If that indeed is true, then the misgivings need to be cleared quickly.