By IANS
Mumbai : Virender Sehwag, Mohammed Kaif, Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh were Saturday recalled among the 30 probables while Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly will miss the Twenty20 World Championship in South Africa in September.
Dilip Vengsarkar, chairman of the selection committee, told reporters here that Tendulkar, Dravid and Ganguly were not picked because they had asked not to be considered for the Sep 10-24 tournament.
"I got a call from Rahul Dravid this morning and he said that the three players were opting out of the Twenty20 World Championship," he said.
Kaif, who was ignored for the ongoing tours of Ireland and England, was named captain of the India 'A' team for the Zimbabwe and Kenya tours, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced.
Wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Pathan's brother Yusuf, Suresh Raina, who has recovered from a leg injury, Ishant Sharma, Ramesh Powar, Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel, who was also injured recently, were also picked among the probables.
The probables will be reduced to a 15-member squad, which will be announced Aug 6 or 7.
Neeraj Patel (Gujarat), Karan Goel (Punjab), Cheteshwar Pujara (Saurashtra), Abhishek Jhunjhunwala (Bengal), Niranjan Behara (Orissa), Anirudh Srikant (Tamil Nadu) and Praveen Kumar (Uttar Pradesh) are among the youngsters named among the Twenty20 probables.
The Twenty20 World Championship will be held in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.
Apart from Kaif, wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel, who has been appointed vice-captain, gets a chance to perform well in Zimbabwe and Kenya and stage a comeback to the national team.
Mahesh Rawat of Haryana is the second wicketkeeper in the 16-members team that also has Irfan Pathan and Vikram Raj Vir Singh.
Squads:
For Zimbabwe/Kenya tours: Mohammed Kaif (captain/Uttar Pradesh), Parthiv Patel (vice-captain/wicketkeeper/Gujarat), Robin Uthappa (Karnataka), Cheteshwar Pujara (Saurashtra), S. Badrinath (Tamil Nadu), Rohit Sharma (Mumbai), Rajesh Pawar (Baroda), Mahesh Rawat (wicketkeeper/Haryana), Piyush Chawla (Uttar Pradesh), Arjun Yadav (Hyderabad), Pragyan Ojha (Hyderabad), Irfan Pathan (Baroda), Vikram Raj Vir Singh (Punjab), Yo Mahesh (Tamil Nadu), Pankaj Singh (Rajasthan) and Niraj Patel (Gujarat)
Support staff: Chandrakant Pandit (Coach), T.C. Mathew (manager), Vaibhav Daga (Physiotherapist)
Probables for Twenty20 World Championship: Virender Sehwag (Delhi), Robin Uthappa (Karnataka), Yuvraj Singh (Punjab), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (Jharkhand), Mohammad Kaif (Uttar Pradesh), Dinesh Karthik (Tamil Nadu), Rohit Sharma (Mumbai), Gautam Gambhir (Delhi), Yusuf Pathan (Baroda), Suresh Raina (Uttar Pradesh), Manoj Tiwari (Bengal), Neeraj Patel (Gujarat), Karan Goel (Punjab), Cheteshwar Pujara (Saurashtra), Abhishek Jhunjhunwala (Bengal), Rudra Pratap Singh (Uttar Pradesh), Ishant Sharma (Delhi), Zaheer Khan (Mumbai), Irfan Pathan (Baroda), Ajit Agarkar (Mumbai), S. Sreesanth (Kerala), Munaf Patel (Maharashtra), Joginder Sharma (Haryana), Piyush Chawla (Uttar Pradesh), Harbhajan Singh (Punjab), Ramesh Powar (Mumbai), Rajesh Pawar (Baroda), Niranjan Behara (Orissa), Anirudh Srikant (Tamil Nadu), Praveen Kumar (Uttar Pradesh)