The Wall makes a come-back!

The much awaited teams for the tri-series in Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy in South Africa are announced. Rahul Sharad Dravid returns to one-day cricket after a long gap. The last ODI he played was way back in October 2007. All Bangaloreans are celebrating the moment and hopefully there are more celebrations in store when he contributes to India’s victory. Little Master Sachin Tendulkar who was not a part of Windies tour returns. Young Suresh Raina is fit and raring to go while Rohit Sharma who hasn’t made the best use out of his opportunities sits out. All-rounder Abhishek Nayar remains in the 15 member squad.

Amit Mishra is another come-back man. He returns to shorter format after 6 long years though he is a regular in the longer format. Mishra last played in April 2003 against South Africa. The spinner from Delhi is selected over Pragyan Ojha who has done nothing wrong to be dropped. Mishra faired well in the emerging players’ series and that could be the only reason for his selection. But sometimes LUCK does matter.

Sehwag and Zaheer Khan miss out due to injuries which means D.Karthick has to fill in Viru’s shoes while there are plenty other fast bowlers to lead the pace attack in Zak’s absence.

Overall it’s a pretty balanced side with solid batting order and decent bowling attack. I’m still not convinced with the exclusion of Rohit and Ojha. I have huge expectations from both these young men. Unfortunately, they haven’t lived up to my expectations as yet.

BCCI Corporate Cup begins on September 8th and the players will undergo a 4-day training camp at the NCA from August 27^th. It is to be hoped that ‘the Wall’ stands tall and so does Team India.

ODI squad - Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (capt/wk), Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, RP Singh, Amit Mishra, Dinesh Karthik, and Abhishek Nayar