Team India announced for tri-series, Champions Trophy

The Indian selectors of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) have ended meeting in Chennai on Sunday picking up the 15-member squad for the ODI tri-series in Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy. Skipper MS Dhoni attended the meeting whereas Coach Gary Kirsten was connected via phone from South Africa.

Virendra Sehwag has not been included in the 15-member squad, where as Rahul Dravid has made a comeback. Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Pragyan Ojha could not make a place in the squad.

The triangular ODI series will be held in Sri Lanka from September 8-14, and subsequently the Champions Trophy tournament in South Africa from September 22- October 5.

While as it was almost clear that explosive batsman Virendar Sehwag would be out of both the tournaments owing to his right shoulder injury, he has been kept out. The 36-year-old former captain Rahul Dravid has made a comeback to the ODI team after a gap of nearly two years. Dravid had played the last ODI in October 2007.

Master blaster Sachin Tendulkar is also back. He had made himself unavailable for the four-match ODI series in the West Indies in June-July. Sachin Tendulkar and Gautam Gambhir will open the batting with Rahul Dravid likely to be coming in at No. 3.

Rohit Sharma has been kept out of the 15-member team following patchy performances in the World T20 and the West Indies series. Abhishek Nayar has been included in the team while Virat Kohli could not make a place for him. Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan and Dinesh Karthik are the other mainstream batsmen in the 15-member team. Suresh Raina has also been included in the team.

In absence of the paceman Zaheer Khan, who is also to be ruled out for a shoulder surgery, Ashish Nehra is certainly to partner Ishant Sharma as the new ball pair, besides R P Singh and Praveen Kumar. The two spinners are Harbhajan Singh and Amit Mishra.

Before flying to Colombo, the selected players will have a four-day training camp in Bangalore from August 27 and will participate in Corporate Trophy.

Squad: Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni (skipper/wicketkeeper), Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Amit Mishra, Praveen Kumar, Dinesh Karthik, Abhishek Nayar.