India will have a new captain at the Twenty20 cricket World Cup in South Africa
with Rahul Dravid today opting out of the inaugural edition of the tournament,
alongwith seasoned campaigners Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly,
to make way for youngsters.
The three stalwarts, in their 30s, made their decision known to the Cricket Board
before the national selection committee met to choose a list of 30 probables,
which included out-of-favour players such as Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan
Singh, Irfan Pathan and Mohammad Kaif.
Suresh Raina and Munaf Patel, who have also been out of the team
for some time now have been named among the probables announced by the BCCI
Secretary Niranjan Shah here.
Yousuf Pathan, brother of Irfan, has also found a place
in the preliminary squad for the September 11 to 24 event.
While most of the current India players have expectedly found
a berth in the provisional squad, the national selectors also included a number
of young players who have performed consistently at the domestic level.
Gujarat batsman Neeraj Patel, Punjab opener Karan Goel, Abhishek
Jhunjhunwala (Bengal), batsmen Cheteshwar Pujara of Saurashtra and S Anirudha
of Tamil Nadu, all rounders Niranjan Behera of Orissa and Praveen Kumar of Uttar
Pradesh were some of the youngsters chosen in the list.
The final squad for the championship would be selected on August
6 or 7, Shah said.
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