The Hindu
Mumbai, Jan 19: In less than seven months after his sparkling showing in the inaugural IPL Twenty20 tournament and on the basis of his performances both with the bat (739 runs) and ball (42 wickets) in the recently-concluded Ranji Trophy championship, Saurashtra all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has successfully spurred on the National selectors to include him in the Indian team for the five-match One-Day International cricket series and a Twenty20 international against Sri Lanka to be played in Colombo and Dambulla from January 28 to February 10.
The selectors dropped Delhi’s Virat Kohli and have recalled Uttar Pradesh’s Praveen Kumar as the fifth seamer for the short tour. A nagging hamstring injury had ruled out Harbhajan Singh’s selection.
Based in Jamnagar, the 20-year-old Jadeja is the second Saurashtra player in 24 years to figure in the Indian team; the previous one being off-spinner Ashok Patel, who played eight ODIs for India and at present is the coach of the Gujarat team.
Hyderabad left-arm spinner Pragyan OJha has been retained, which in effect means skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni would have the luxury of three left-arm spinners in the side as he has the option of employing Yuvraj Singh too.
Praveen, who has captured 10 wickets in 50 overs at 23.70 against Sri Lanka has been recalled. The seamer, who won two Man-of-the-Match awards in the Commonwealth Bank series in Australia last year, taking four for 36 in the second final at Brisbane, was not considered for the one-day series against England.
Kohli, who made 37 (Dambulla), 25 and 54 at the Premadasa Stadium and contributed to India’s wins over Sri Lanka last year, was in the 15-member team for the home ODI series against Kevin Pietersen’s England recently. It’s a trifle unfortunate that he doesn’t find a place in the present team.
The team will practise under lights at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chennai on January 25 and leave for Colombo on January 26.
The team: M.S. Dhoni (Capt.), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Munaf Patel, Suresh Raina, Irfan Pathan, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar.