The 15-man squad for the ICC World T20 for India has been announced by the selectors today. There were not too many surprises, but Munaf Patel and Dinesh Karthik did get the axe from those who were selected for the tour to New Zealand a couple of months back.
There is also no place for the Kerala medium pace bowler, S. Sreesanth, whom the selectors would have found to be still struggling from the injury; but most importantly, without any match practice.
The team will be led by M.S. Dhoni, and will have Virender Sehwag as the vice-captain.
The team that will be going to England for the ICC World T20 is as follows:
M.S. Dhoni (c), Virender Sehwag (vc), Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Pragyan Ojha, R.P. Singh, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma
My take on it: It is a very balanced side, but what I like most about it is that there is an emphasis on the all-rounders; with almost everybody except Gautam Gambhir being able to bowl. To me, Ravindra Jadeja could be the player to watch out for as he is not a dasher – unlike most of his illustrious players – and can play through the inning. The advantage this has is that under conditions like the ones one could find in the UK, it will become imperative that some of the batsmen can show some good technique and stick it out in the middle.
Unfortunately for Yuvraj Singh, his travails with the swinging ball could just continue into this series as well, if the hosts live up to their reputation of cloudy skies and the green top!