Sourav, Zaheer and Nehra out of first two ODIs

MOHALI: Sachin Tendulkar returned to the team after a long injury layoff while pacemen Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra were dropped from the 15-member Indian squad named today for the first two matches of the one-day cricket series against Sri Lanka.

Sourav Ganguly, who was dethroned as the captain on Thursday, was also not included in the squad announced after a meeting of the five-member selection committee here.

 Kerala speedster Sreesanth was the lone new face in the squad which also included Delhi opener Gautam Gambhir, who found a berth in the one-day team for the first time.

Mohammad Kaif was omitted because of an injury suffered during the Challenger Series here while the stylish VVS Laxman was once again ignored for the shorter version of the game.

Chairman of the Selection Committee Kiran More said he had spoken to captain Rahul Dravid, who is currently in Sydney for the Super Test, before finalising the squad. More also said Tendulkar, undergoing rehabilitation following an elbow surgery in May this year, had been included after physio John Gloster gave him the green signal.

Ganguly, suffering from a mild tennis elbow injury, would be reassessed on October 17 and could be considered for selection for the remaining matches of the series beginning on October 25, More said.

Team: Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Venugopal Rao, Suresh Raina, M S Dhoni, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, J P Yadav, Sreesanth, Gautam Gambhir and R P Singh.