Indian cricket team profile world cup 2011

Chennai: Leg spinner Piyush Chawla was the surprise inclusion while young batsman Rohit Sharma and speedster S. Sreesanth were on Monday dropped from India’s 15-member squad for the upcoming cricket World Cup to be held in the sub-continent from 19 February.

Tamil Nadu spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who is also a useful batsman, was also named in the squad announced by the BCCI secretary N. Srinivasan after a meeting of the selection committee here.

There were just a couple of spots up for grabs in the team and the selectors opted to include Chawla and Ashwin ahead of Pragyan Ojha in the squad which has as many as three specialist spinners which came as a surprise.

India’s major concern ahead of the team selection was the injuries to four key players - Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and pacer Praveen Kumar - but the selectors decided to include them, expecting all four to be fit in time for the high-profile tournament.

Apart from inclusion of Chawla, who last played a ODI match in 2008, there were no major surprises in the squad to be captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virender Sehwag as his deputy.

The national selectors, who met for one and half hours to finalise the team here, picked three specia

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