By Qaiser Mohammad Ali, IANS
Bangalore : The Indian cricket selectors Wednesday picked pacers Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma and Vikram Raj Vir Singh and dropped Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel due to injuries for the third and final Test against Pakistan starting here Saturday.
Announcing the team after a selection committee meeting chaired by Dilip Vengsarkar at the Ashoka Grand hotel, Indian Cricket Board secretary Niranjan Shah said that Zaheer has a heel injury while Munaf was not fully fit.
Pacers Rudra Pratap Singh (side strain) and Sreesanth (shoulder) are also nursing injuries and are already out of the match to be played at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
Shah, who also announced 24 probables for the upcoming tour of Australia, did not go into specifics of injuries to Zaheer and Munaf, which they are believed to have sustained during the drawn second Test at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata this week.
He said that Kumble and Mahendra Singh Dhoni were retained captain and vice-captain for the Australia tour starting this month.
Although the selection of the squad for Australia was also on the agenda of the meeting, it was deferred to give some more time to the injured players to recover, said Shah.
A 16-member squad for the upcoming series against Australia will now be picked on the fifth and final day of the Dec 12 Test here.
Shah also announced that Chetan Chauhan, a former Test opener, would be the administrative manager for four-match Test series in Australia and M.V. Sridhar, vice-resident of Hyderabad Cricket Association, the assistant manager who would also interact with the media for the Tests.
While Shah simply read out the names of the players before the media, Vengsarkar, who had arrived here at around 5 p.m. from Mumbai, did not speak at all as per the new board rules.
Vengsarkar, a former India captain, finally relented to attend the meeting following indications by the board that it would look into the issue of his newspaper column. The board has barred the selectors from writing or speaking to the media.
The team for third Test: Anil Kumble (captain), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (vice-captain/wicket-keeper), Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, V.V.S.Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan, Wasim Jaffer, Ishant Sharma, Vikram Raj Vir Singh, Murali Kartik and Dinesh Kartik.
Probables for Australia tour: Anil Kumble (captain), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (vice-captain), Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, V.V.S. Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan, Wasim Jaffer, Ishant Sharma, V.R.V. Singh, Murali Kartik, Dinesh Kartik, Gautam Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, R.P. Singh, Munaf Patel, Ranadeb Bose, Pankaj Singh, Piyush Chawla, Ajit Agarkar, Parthiv Patel and Akash Chopra.