The national selectors today continued to ignore veteran speedster Javagal Srinath andinducted relative newcomers J.P.Yadav and L.Balaji in the 20-member list of probables for next month's ICC ChampionsTrophy in Sri Lanka.
Saurav Ganguly expectedly has been retained captain for the tourmanent billed as the "Mini World Cup" to be held inColombo from September 12 to 29.
Barring the inclusion of all-rounder Yadav of Railways and Tamil Nadu fast bowlerBalaji, there were no other suprises in the list with the selectors retaining allthe 15 players who had toured England for the NatWest Trophy limited overs series.
Young Gujarat wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel, who joined the team in England for the Test series, has also been included inthe list of probables alongwith Ajay Ratra.
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Cricket board secretary Niranjan Shah told reporters here that though the selectors discussed Srinath's name "they didnot consider him in the probables' list".
Shah said Ganguly has been handling the team quite well, particularly in the one-dayers - winning the one-day series inthe West Indies 2-1 and the Natwest series in England recently - and hence the selectors decided to retain him as captain.
Probables: Saurav Ganguly (capt), Virender Sehwag, Dinesh Mongia, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh,Mohammed Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Ashish Nehra, Parthiv Patel, Ajay Ratra, V.V.S.Laxman, Murali Kartik, J.P.Yadav, Sanjay Bangar, L. Balaji andTinu Yohannan.
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The omission could dash the World Cup hopes of Srinath, who had earlier expressed his desire to play in one-dayinternationals while announcing his retirement from Test cricket, as Shah said the selection was made keeping in mindthe next year's World Cup at South Africa.
"The selectors have picked the players keeping in view the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and all the players who didduty in the Natwest series have been retained after their good showing," Shah added.
"The 15-member team would be selected here either on August 9 or 10 as we have to send the list of the playersbefore August 12 to the host nation," Shah added.
Left-arm spinner Murali Kartik and his Railways teammate Sanjay Bangar are also back in contention in the one-day teamafter being left out of the squad for the NatWest series.
PTI
