Chennai, January 17: Leg spinner Piyush Chawla was the surprise inclusion while young batsman Rohit Sharma and speedster S Sreesanth were today dropped from India”s 15-member squad for the upcoming cricket World Cup to be held in the sub-continent from February 19.
Tamil Nadu spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who is also a useful batsman, was also named in the squad announced by the BCCI secretary N Srinivasan after a meeting of the selection committee here.
There were just a couple of spots up for grabs in the team and the selectors opted to include Chawla and Ashwin ahead of Pragyan Ojha in the squad which has as many as three specialist spinners which came as a surprise.
India”s major concern ahead of the team selection was the injuries to four key players – Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and pacer Praveen Kumar – but the selectors decided to include them, expecting all four to be fit in time for the high-profile tournament.
Apart from inclusion of Chawla, who last played a ODI match in 2008, there were no major surprises in the squad to be captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virender Sehwag as his deputy.
The national selectors, who met for one and half hours to finalise the team here, picked three specialist spinners considering that the high profile-event will be held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
“This is the best possible winning combination we have picked up which will win us the World Cup. We (selectors) engaged in thorough discussion at the meeting here before finalising the squad.
“Taking into account all the conditions like wickets, the opposition we will be playing, the selectors have chosen a very well balanced team,” said chief selector Krishnamachari Srikkanth told reporters after the meeting.
The chief selector said the reason behind picking up three specialist spinners were the turning wickets in India.
“Don”t forget that you are playing in India. The spinners probably play a very major role on the turning wickets. I am confident that the kind of balance we have, the kind of batting line-up we have, this cricket team led by M S Dhoni and others will do the job for us”, he said.
“This particular Indian team is doing brilliantly for the last couple of years in both Test and ODI cricket. They are playing consistently not only in India but outside. We are confident this team will do well and win the world cup for us in front of the home crowd,” he added.
——–PTI