The experienced Rahul Dravid was today recalled after almost two years while off-colour Harbhajan Singh was dropped from India’s Twenty20 and one-day squad for the upcoming series against England beginning August 31.
Dravid, the lone batsman in form in the ongoing Test series, was included to provide stability to the brittle line-up which has struggled in the seaming English conditions.
Harbhajan, who has been ruled out of the Test series because of an abdominal strain, was expectedly not considered for the ODIs along with another star injured player Yuvraj Singh, nursing a broken left index finger.
Karnataka paceman Vinay Kumar and wicketkeeper-batsman Parthiv Patel were recalled into the 16-member squad announced by the BCCI secretary N Srinivasan after a meeting of the selection committee here.
Paceman S Sreesanth, left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha and all-rounder Yusuf Pathan also failed to find favour with the five-man selection panel which packed the team with five specialist pacemen and two spinners in Amit Mishra and R Ashwin.
Tendulkar, who often skips one-dayers, has been included in the team.
India will play the lone Twenty20 match in Manchester on August 31 followed by five one-dayers at Chester-Le-Street (September 3), Southampton (September 6), London (September 9 and September 11) and Cardiff (September 16).
The Squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag (vice-captain), Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma, Zaheer Khan, R Ashwin, Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel, Ishant Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Amit Mishra, Parthiv Patel.
