By IANS
Mumbai : The meeting of the national selection committee, which was to select the India team for the first Test against South Africa, will be held in Bangalore on March 17 instead of March 9 here, as originally scheduled.
A press release by the Board of Control for Cricket in India stated Thursday that the date and venue were changed at the request of chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar. He and his colleagues wanted to watch some Deodhar Trophy matches before finalising the team.
The first Test against South Africa will played in Chennai’s M.A. Chidambaram Stadium March 26-30. The other two Tests will be in Ahmedabad (April 3-7) and Kanpur (April 11-15).
The South Africans will arrive in Chennai March 21.
All the players who returned home from Australia after the Test series will undergo fitness-specific assessment at the National cricket Academy in Bangalore Friday. Test skipper Anil Kumble, his predecessors Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly, V.V.S. Laxman and Wasim Jaffer, who had returned after the Tests in January-end, will also take the fitness test.
Injured fast bowlers Zaheer Khan and R.P. Singh will also have to undergo a similar fitness assessment before the selectors meet. Zaheer is in South Africa to get his ankle treated. R.P. Singh returned from Australia with a stretched hamstring.