The Hindu : Sport : 36-member probables list announced

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 22, 2005

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Sport

36-member probables list announced

Sports Reporter

BANGALORE: A 36-member probables list for the Indian team scheduled to tour Sri Lanka for the Tri-Nation Series, was announced here on Tuesday afternoon. Besides the regulars, the probables list also features promising youngsters like India under-19 southpaw Suresh Raina and Tamil Nadu medium-pacer Jesuraj.

The selection committee met here in the morning and after a marathon session that lasted more than three hours, finalised the probables who will attend a slew of camps commencing at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) here on June 27.

The BCCI secretary S.K. Nair said: "The selection committee deliberated upon the players and the camp schedules and the members also interacted with coach Greg Chappell for about an hour. The selectors gave him a feedback about the Indian team's performances and Mr. Chappell also expressed his views on team composition keeping in mind the forthcoming one-dayers in Sri Lanka which will be followed by the tour of Zimbabwe."

The first camp is the fast bowlers' fitness and conditioning camp that features 16 medium-pacers. The camp will be held here from June 27 to July 4.

The 16 fast bowlers will later be joined by 20 other probables and the combined 36 players will attend a conditioning camp here from July 5 to 12.

The final camp with specific focus on cricket skills will be held here from July 13 to 22.

"The conditioning camps will be conducted by trainer Gregory King and the nature and conduct of the cricket skills camp will be decided by coach Greg Chappell and the team management," said Mr. Nair.

The Board secretary however reiterated his earlier views on players who are busy in the County circuit and he said, "though we have named all these probables, we also have a provision for those players who are playing in the County circuit. They have been exempted from the initial camps and they will be required to attend only the final cricket skills camp."

Currently Sourav Ganguly, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan and Dinesh Mongia are busy on the County circuit.

Team announcement

On the final Indian team selection and the Tri-series dates, Mr. Nair said the "Indian team for the matches in Sri Lanka will most likely be selected here on July 18 and the team will leave on July 24. There might be a change in the schedule of the Tri-series. Initially India was scheduled to play its first match on August 1 but now talks are on with our Sri Lankan counterparts and we will most likely have our first match either on July 26 or 27."

On Sourav Ganguly, who is serving a six-match ban, and Sachin Tendulkar, who is recovering from surgery, S.K. Nair said: "We have a long season ahead and we wanted Sourav Ganguly to attend the pre-season camp. The ICC may be deliberating upon his ban and we at the Board still stick to our stand that the sentence given to him is harsh. As for Sachin Tendulkar, we know that he won't be available for selection for some time due to the surgery. But he will be coming here during the final phase of the camp and he will interact with coach Chappell and express his views. Sachin may not be able to participate in these camps but his presence in the final phase is certain."

The probables:

Fast bowlers camp: Zaheer Khan, L. Balaji, A. Nehra, I. Pathan, A. Agarkar, Gagandeep Singh, S.S. Paul, Ranadeb Bose, Harvinder Singh, Amit Bhandari, S. Trivedi, Sreesanth, Joginder Sharma, Munaf Patel, J.P. Yadav and Jesuraj.

Fitness & cricket skills camps: S. Ganguly, V. Sehwag, R. Dravid, M. Kaif, Yuvraj Singh, V.V.S. Laxman, Dinesh Mongia, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Venugopala Rao, Neeraj Patil, Dhiraj Jadhav, M.S. Dhoni, Dinesh Kaarthick, Parthiv Patel, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik, S. Sriram and Hemang Badani.

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