Indian cricket team sets off for the Caribbean tour today to face http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 at their home
The Suresh Raina-led new look Indian cricket squad left for West Indies on Wednesday, June 1st, to play the hosts in a Twenty20, One Day International and Test series.
The team left from Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport for London, from where they will fly to Barbados.
The Indian team is missing many key players including the World Cup winning skipper, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Yuvraj-Singh-c98364, and the hard-hitting top order batsman, Gautam Gambhir.
The Men in Blue have had a hectic season over the past couple of months which saw them playing two high-profile draining tournaments, the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/ICC-World-Cup-2011-c100625 and the 45-day long season 4 of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
Hence, a number of senior players, including Dhoni and Tendulkar, have decided to miss the Caribbean tour and rest their bodies.
Gambhir and Yuvraj, on the other hand, have been forced by their injuries to pull out of the tour. Both players picked up injuries during the recently concluded IPL-4 where Gambhir was captain of Kolkata http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Knight-c71599 Riders while Yuvraj led IPL debutants, Pune
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Warriors-c861.
Other players missing the West Indies series include pace bowlers, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/S-Sreesanth-c2398, and the leg-spinner, Piyush Chawla. Flamboyant opening batsman, Virender Sehwag, is also recovering from a shoulder surgery so he has also been
left out.
In the absence of nine senior players the only Twenty20 and five-match ODI series against West Indies will be a great challenge for the Indian team.
However, the Test squad will include main players, Dhoni, VVS Laxman, Muralii Vijay, Rahul Dravid, Sreesanth and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Abhinav-Mukund-c41758.
Raina said that the absence of senior players will provide a golden opportunity to the new talent to make their impact at the international stage.
After the ICC World Cup 2011, this would be the first appearance of the Indian team in an international series.
The World Champions will start their tour with the only Twenty20, scheduled to be played on June 4th, at Port of Spain.
ODI and T20 squad: Suresh Raina (capt), http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Manoj-Tiwary-c1890, Shikhar
Dhawan.
Test squad: M S Dhoni (capt), VVS Laxman (vc), http://www.senore.com/Cricket/M-Vijay-c1867, Abhinav Mukund, Rahul Dravid, Virat Kohli, S Badrinath, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Sreesanth, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, Suresh Raina, Parthiv Patel.
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