Sehwag dropped from the first two ODIs against West Indies but is among the World Cup probables; Ganguly included in both.
RAJKOT: A spate of bad performances in the recent past and an inability to learn from his mistakes finally caught up with Virender Sehwag as he was dropped from the Indian team for the first two one-day internationals against the West Indies.
Irfan Pathan continues to find himself out of favour too even as Haryana all-rounder Joginder Sharma’s consistent Ranji performances earned him a recall.
The five-man selection committee headed by Dilip Vengsarkar met with coach Greg Chappell and skipper Rahul Dravid in the presence of BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah in Rajkot. Wasim Jaffer was also dropped while leg-spinner Anil Kumble was rested.
Dinesh Kaarthick got another vote of confidence as he has been picked in the squad both as a batsman and a reserve wicket-keeper.
With Sehwag no longer in the mix of things and Yuvraj Singh out with injury, Sachin Tendulkar was named as vice-captain.
The selectors have named as many as four openers in the 15-member squad — Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir — for the two ODIs.
But it is the team management that will take the final decision about the opening combination.
Ganguly and Tendulkar formed one of the most successful opening pair in one-day cricket, having amassed the highest number of century partnerships (16) for the first wicket.
Together, they have scored 5,308 runs at an average of 45.37.
If they manage to strike the right balance once again, then Sehwag might be forced to return to the middle-order.
The news from the inside is that the decision to drop Sehwag was unanimous but it is only a warning.
With just 8 ODIs left before the World Cup, the selectors and the team management can’t really afford to experiment too much and an in-form Sehwag would still be a vital member of the team.
“The four ODIs against Sri Lanka will see the best Indian team take the field,” said Vengsarkar.
That basically means that all the permutations and combinations will need to be worked out before that in the series against the West Indies.
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