By IANS
Hyderabad : Left-arm spinner Murali Kartik was picked on Friday to replace off-spinner Ramesh Powar in the Indian team for the fourth and fifth One-day Internationals against Australia, signalling his comeback after 20 months.
This was the only change in the 15-member squad announced by board secretary Niranjan Shah here following a meeting of the five-man selection committee.
“This is the only change made in the team for next two matches,” Shah said during the third ODI at Rajiv Gandhi International Stadium here.
Kartik last played an ODI against Pakistan in Peshawar on Feb 6, 2006. He is currently giving expert comments on a sports channel and was speaking Friday when the announcement came.
The news must have pleased Kartik immensely as he had recently failed to find a place in any of the four grades of the annual contracts announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The fourth match will be played in Chandigarh Monday and the fifth in Baroda Thursday.
With the selectors deciding to make just one change from the squad that played the first three matches, Virender Sehwag will have to wait for some more time to stage a comeback to the ODI team.
Shah also said former captain Sourav Ganguly was dropped for Friday’s match though he was fit to play.
He faced a volley of questions on Ganguly’s axing, especially from reporters representing the Bengali media, but declined to give any reason for the decision. “I don’t know the reasons,” he said.
Shah also announced that the Twenty20 World Championship winning squad has been retained for the lone Twenty20 match against Australia in Mumbai Oct 20.
Only Piyush Chawla, who is injured, has been excluded.
Squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain/wicket-keeper), Yuvraj Singh (vice-captain), Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Dinesh Kartik, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Irfan Pathan, Ramesh Powar, Rohit Sharma, Murali Kartik, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth and Harbhajan Singh.