Australian cricket team will be visiting India to play in four test matches that shall commence from February 22. The squad for the forthcoming series was announced on Sunday by the Board of Cricket Control of India.
Spinner Harbhajan Singh who had a splendid local season had found his way into the team. On the other hand, out of form Gautam Gambhir had been left out for the first two matches to be played at Chennai (February 22-26) and Hyderabad (March 2-6).
BCCI announced that soon it shall announce the team composition for the third and fourth matches to be played at Mohali (March 14-18) and New Delhi (March 22-26). The squad seems to be well balanced with M.S. Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ajinkya Rahane, Asok Dinda, Murali Vijay, Ishant Sharma.
Young players like Dhawan and Bhuvaneshwar received green signal from the selectors, while seasoned players like Yuvraj Singh and Suresh Raina were again left out by the BCCI.
After a two hour deliberation by the selection committee headed by veteran master batsman Sandeep Patil, they decided to make three imminent changes from the squad that played against England in the last match at Nagpur in December 2012. In spite of Sehwag also being in poor form since sometime, his selections surprised many. (Wishesh AarKay)
