By IANS
New Delhi : Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir will play for Delhi in a warm-up limited-overs tie against Pakistan here Friday, a top Delhi cricket official has confirmed.
However, left-arm pacer Ashish Nehra, now out of the Indian team, has been ruled out of the match due to an injury, Delhi selection committee chairman Chetan Chauhan said Monday.
“Only Nehra in the 15-member team will not play the warm-up match due to an ankle injury. We will probably replace him with someone from the stand-bys,” Chauhan told IANS.
S.P. Bansal, general-secretary of the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), also confirmed that all other players were available for the match to be played at the Ferozeshah Kotla.
“Sehwag, Gambhir will be among the players who will turn out against the Pakistani side,” he said.
“Of the squad picked, only Nehra is not available for the match as he is not fit.”
The Delhi squad has already been announced.
Bansal also said that preparations at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground for the opening match of Pakistan’s 42-day tour, comprising three Tests and five One-day Internationals, were complete.
“There will be no tickets for the match, so fans can just walk in to watch the action Friday. We have readied the lower tier, comprising 15,000 seats, for the spectators,” Bansal told IANS.
“Additionally, provision for water and snacks for spectators has also been made, besides sufficient security arrangements by the Delhi Police.”
The Pakistani team lands in Delhi Thursday and after the warm-up match the next day they travel to Guwahati to play the first ODI Nov 5.
The tour ends with the five-day third Test in Bangalore that starts Dec 8.
Teams:
Delhi: Virender Sehwag (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Aakash Chopra, Ashish Nehra, Mithun Manhas, Mayank Tehlan, Virat Kohli, Puneet Bisht, Rajat Bhatia, Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant Sharma, Pradeep Sangwan, Amit Bhandari, Chetanya Nanda and Aditya Jain
Stand-bys: Gaurav Chhabra, Yogesh Nagar, Abhishek Sharma and Kunal Lall
Coach: Vijay Dahiya
Pakistan: Shoaib Malik (captain), Salman Butt, Imran Nazir, Yasir Hameed, Younis Khan, Mohammad Yousuf, Shahid Afridi, Misbah-ul-Haq, Fawad Alam, Kamran Akmal (wicket-keeper), Mohammad Asif, Shoaib Akhtar, Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir, Abdur Rehman and Iftikhar Anjum
Coach: Geoff Lawson (Australia)