India announces its 15-man Squad for the Asia Cup
The Indian cricket board (BCCI) has announced its 15-man squad for the Asia Cup yesterday. Accepting Sachin Tendulkar's request to be permitted to rest, the board has not included him in the squad.
The BCCI selectors, who met in New Delhi on Monday to single out the 15-member team for the Asia Cup to be played in Sri Lanka from June 15 to 24, have also given the Punjab’s left-hander Yuvraj Singh sufficient time to relax and find his form by showing him the door out. Yusuf Pathan, another buccaneer also failed to find a place in the announced squad. Pathan’s limitations against short-pitched bowling have been subjugated to the hilt in the world of cricket.
Young Jharkhand batsman, Saurabh Tiwary, was benefited by the droppings as he got his first chance to show his talent on the international arena. Tiwary was overwhelmed with the Mumbai Indians earlier this season.
As anticipated, few seniors who were rested for the recently concluded tri-series played in Zimbabwe, which ultimately turned out to be a debacle for the team, have been included to provide strength to the combination. Skipper MS Dhoni, Gautam Gambhir,Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra and Harbhajan Singh will be leading the campaign in the Emerald Isles against hard-hitting opponents like the hosts, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. Sehwag was out of action because of a shoulder injury.
Though Kris Srikkanth, the chairman of selectors, did not say it explicitly, did tip-off that lack of fitness principally went against Yuvraj Singh who has been struggling niggle plus poor form in the last few months. Yet no official statement was given for Yuvraj’s ouster.
The selectors scanned the player’s performance in the past 12 months before making their decision. Yuvraj has scored 495 runs in this stint at an average of 33, which obviously is not too bad but fitness issues and plunging fielding standards cost him dearly.
After the 15-man team was announced, Srikkanth said: "A lot of stress was given on fitness. Fitness and fielding are important. We have gone through the record of the last one year and did a detailed analysis. Recently, we lost some matches or struggled in some due to poor fielding. We also looked at consistency".
The selectors hope that Yuvraj would utilize the break to work on his fitness before he dons the Indian jersey again. With the World Cup 2011 coming up in February next year, they are expecting that the southpaw would be back in the prime form as he has always been an important cog in the Indian wheels, particularly in ODIs. As for Tendulkar, the Indian cricket board informed, that looking at the long season ahead, he sought to spend time with his family. Though his absence would put a lot of pressure on the remaining batsmen as it's the batting line and not the bowlers, which is expected to win the matches for India.
Two edging players, Ashok Dinda, a Bengal medium-pacer and R Ashwin, a handy restrictive bowler - despite the team's bad performance in tri-series - managed to retain their places. Ravindra Jadeja also retained his position as the utility man.
Meanwhile, Srikkanth defended the decision of selecting a second-string squad for the recently concluded disastrous tri-series in Zimbabwe, saying that at least some young players were tested.
"How else do you try them? People say our selection backfired but how? We wanted to know how good some of the youngsters are".
Srikkanth asked the fans not to get carried away with one or two strings. He said that one cannot be decisive after a few games as it is a continuous process.
Well, let the time decide whether the process opens up into something good for India or not.
The Asia Cup, that also features Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the underdogs Bangladesh, kicks off in Sri Lanka just a week after. We’ll just have to wait and see what exciting performances await us.
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