da lvbet： Board Secretary Jaywant Lele announced a list of 25 probables for India’s forthcoming tour of Zimbabwe at the GSFC ground in Baroda on Sunday
Sankhya Krishnan22-Apr-2001There were few surprises in the list of 25 probables for India’sforthcoming tour of Zimbabwe which Board secretary JY Lele announced at theGujarat State Fertilizer Corporation ground in Baroda on Sunday. Only threeof them have not represented India before in either Tests orODIs: medium pacer Rakesh Patel and rookie wicket keepers Ajay Ratra andDeep Dasgupta. Amongst the probables are three protagonists from the ongoing Ranji Trophy final: Zaheer Khan and Rakesh Patel from Baroda andHarvinder Singh from Railways.Chairman of selectors Chandu Borde and his four colleagues Madan Lal, AshokMalhotra, TA Sekhar and Sanjay Jagdale conferred with Indian skipper SauravGanguly before exercising their verdict. The squad includes seven mediumpacers, four spinners, three wicket keepers and eleven batsmen, many ofwhom can bowl to varying degrees of proficiency. The only major hiccup wasthe exclusion of both Nayan Mongia and Vijay Dahiya. In their absence SamirDighe is pitchforked into the hot seat as India’s No.1 wicket keeper. CoachJohn Wright indicated after the series against Australia that the Indian team needed players with ‘attitude’ like Dighe. The 32-year-old Mumbai skipper’s brief but spunky knock in the climactic stages of the Chennai Test doubtless sealed the vote in his favour.He will however have two young pretenders breathing down his neck at thepreparatory camp. Haryana’s Ajay Ratra is fairly well known for hisexploits at the junior level. Earlier this year he skippered the IndiaUnder-19s to victory over their English counterparts in both the Test andone-day series. But Bengal’s Deep Dasgupta is still something of an unknownquantity. Dasgupta, 23, began his first class career as a specialistopening batsman and struck a century on debut in the Super League againstBaroda at the Eden Gardens in 1998/99. Next season he took additionalcustody of the keeper’s job but flitted in and out of the side untilfinally shaking off the shadow of veteran Saba Karim.Nine of the 11 batsmen operate in the middle order, leaving no reserve opener apart from Ramesh and Das who were not entirely convincing in the Test seriesagainst Australia. While the pair need to be persisted for the moment, itwould have been ideal to have someone pushing them like Baroda’s SatyajitParab who struck four centuries in the Ranji Trophy this season, thehighest by any batsman.The preponderance of seamers is in accordance with the hard, grassy wicketsexpected in Zimbabwe but contrary to general impression, India’s spinnershave received plenty of purchase on two previous tours of Zimbabwe. In twoone-off Tests India played in Harare, 16 of the 34 Zimbabwean scalps fellto the slow bowlers. Three of the four spinners from the third Test squadat Chennai are retained while Rahul Sanghvi gets an opportunity toresurrect his career, having been harshly jettisoned after the pipeopenerin Mumbai where Saurav Ganguly gave him ten overs in five spells, in whichhe took two wickets.Of the quicker bowlers, Rakesh Patel, lively and industrious, collected 34wickets in the Ranji season. But for a knee injury which severely curtailedhis participation in the final he might have ended up as the highest wickettaker in the competition. Harvinder Singh who played two Tests againstAustralia in 1997/98 is slightly luckier to earn a recall; although hebowled well in bursts his presence seems more a token concession to theemergence of Railways as a domestic power. A better choice would have beenYere Goud whose unruffled temperament is admirably suited to the demands ofTest cricket; the 29 year old tops the Ranji aggregate this season with 898runs going into the final day. Indeed only one of the top 56 run getters inthe Ranji Trophy figures in the probables: Dinesh Mongia who finished 28thin the final standings. It makes one wonder whether domestic performancesreally count.Separate teams are likely to be chosen from the probables for the Test andone-day legs of the tour. India begin their engagements with two three daywarm-up games, followed by two Test matches, and wind up with a triangularone-day series also involving the West Indies. A five day camp for theprobables will kick off in Bangalore from May 13 and the final team is tobe announced on May 18.The probables:Saurav Ganguly (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman,Sadagopan Ramesh, Shiv Sunder Das, Hemang Badani, Yuvraj Singh, VirenderShewag, Dinesh Mongia, Mohammed Kaif, Sameer Dighe, Ajay Ratra, DeepDasgupta, Javagal Srinath, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, Debashis Mohanty,Ashish Nehra, Rakesh Patel, Harvinder Singh, Harbhajan Singh, SarandeepSingh, Sairaj Bahutule and Rahul Sanghvi.