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[Blwe_torch]

Rahul Dravid back in ODI squad
AGENCIES 16 August 2009, 12:31pm IST

NEW DELHI: Former captain Rahul Dravid is back in the Indian One-day squad, after nearly a two-year gap, for next month's tri-series in Sri Lanka and the subsequent Champions Trophy in South Africa.

Dravid played the last of his 333 ODIs back in October 2007 against Australia in Nagpur and the former India captain has amassed 10,585 runs at an average of 39.49.

Sachin Tendulkar also returned to the side, after skipping the ODI series in the West Indies.

However, pacer Zaheer Khan and hard-hitter Virender Sehwag have been dropped due to their injuries. Young gun Rohit Sharma and spinner Pragyan Ojha have not been included in the side.

Yusuf Pathan, who has been chipping in with the bat besides rolling his arms to good effect, retained his place.

Wicket-keeper batsman Dinesh Karthik and Abhishek Nayar, who came to lime-light for his performance in the Indian Premier league III, has been included in the squad.

The selected Indian players will have a four-day training camp at the National Cricket Academy in Bangalore from August 27. The camp is expected to focus on both physical conditioning and skills before the players disperse on August 30 to participate in the BCCI Corporate Cup.

Squad: Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, MS Dhoni, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra, Dinesh Karthik, Abhishek Nayar, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/sports/cricket/top-stories/Rahul-Dravid-back-in-ODI-squad/articleshow/4898632.cms

[dhruvdeepak]

what has ojha done wrong?

[cricket_news]

India recall Dravid to ODI squad
16 August 2009, 9:13 am



India recall Dravid to ODI squad



Dravid gave up the Indian captaincy in September 2007

Former India captain Rahul Dravid is to make a return to one-day international cricket after almost two years out.The 36-year-old, who last played an ODI in October 2007, is included in India's tri-series trip to Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy in South Africa.

Rohit Sharma has been dropped for Dravid, while opener Virender Sehwag is still out with the shoulder injury he suffered in the Indian Premier League.

However, Sachin Tendulkar and Suresh Raina return from injuries.

The duo missed India's trip to the West Indies for four one-day games in late June, early July - the tourists won the series 2-1, with one match abandoned because of rain.

And the selectors have returned to Dravid after Sharma scored just 15 runs in three innings in the Caribbean on the back of a mediocre World Twenty20 tournament.

In the bowling department, leg-spinner Amit Mishra is preferred to left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, while paceman Zaheer Khan's shoulder injury keeps him out of the squad.

India squad: MS Dhoni (captain), S Tendulkar, G Gambhir, R Dravid, S Raina, Y Singh, Y Pathan, H Singh, RP Singh, A Mishra, P Kumar, I Sharma, D Karthik (wkt), A Nayar, A Nehra.



Source: BBC Sport | Cricket | World Edition

[Rocky]

what has ojha done wrong?

The main questions are:
What have Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, Ishant Sharma, Abhishek Nayar and Ashish Nehra done right in the recent ODI past to get selected?
And, what have Pragyan Ojha and Virat Kohli done wrong to get excluded?

[dextrous]

Nehra just made a comeback and didn't do horribly..can't just axe people. Same with Nayar.

[poondu]

Fascinating, not regressive

Rahul Dravid's return to the ODI scene is not knee-jerk, nor is it regressive; it is a fascinating story

Sidharth Monga

August 16, 2009

Text size: A | A 
Rahul Dravid's return to India's one-day team is a short-term selection all right, but the selectors see him as a bridge for the Rohits and the Rainas © Getty Images
 
 

Related Links
News : Dravid returns to one-day squad

Players/Officials: Rahul Dravid
Series/Tournaments: ICC Champions Trophy | Sri Lanka Tri-Series
Teams: India
 
Let's get the immediate question out of the way. The return of Rahul Dravid to the ODI scene is not knee-jerk, nor is it regressive. The failures of some of India's young ODI batsmen against testing bowling has been a matter of concern for some time. Dravid is not out of touch with modern cricket; he showed as much in the IPL in South Africa, where the par score had come down by about 20 from the inaugural edition and where batting was not all about plain hitting. So it is not as if Mark Ramprakash has come back. It is open to debate as to what this move says about the reserves of talent in India, but Dravid's comeback is every bit a fascinating story.

He was 34 when dropped, an "old man", a "misfit" in the youngsters' game, a terrible failure in his last few matches (80 runs in the last 10, to be specific). India's ODI team did well without Dravid for long enough to raise questions as to why he was not retiring from limited-overs cricket. For the shorter version of the game was supposed to have changed so much over the last two years as to not have any place for Dravid-like one-dimensional non-big-hitters. Why was he even playing the IPL?

With 333 ODIs and 10,585 runs to his name, it was not as if Dravid had anything to prove to anybody, although most of his ODI career has been about proving people wrong. But something inside must have told him, "This is not how I go". The thought of that drop would not have consumed Dravid over the last two years, during which he has faced a Test slump and come respectfully out of it, but he sure had some unfinished business left. There were no statements in the press that he wanted to play ODIs one more time, but neither was he going to let an opportunity pass.

If he chooses to be perverse, Dravid can draw pleasure from the knowledge that after the batting failures in the ICC World Twenty20 the selectors have had to come back to him, discarded when the going was good. Instead he has been practising for about a week now at the NCA in Bangalore, even on a public holiday when the academy was closed, with a white ball. That is how success has come to Dravid: more hard work, less flash.

In making this comeback, he has also taken a gamble. Playing ODIs again could have an effect on what remains of his Test career. Dravid can easily keep on playing Test cricket, go out on his own terms, and the memories of his struggles against Australia in home ODIs two years ago won't even be evoked. Now he has put on line the relaxed state of mind he attained after giving up captaincy, and playing only Test cricket.

It is a bold move by the selectors too, because it will be all too easy to criticise if it goes wrong. The seeds for Dravid's comeback perhaps were sown when West Indies first employed the short ball successfully against India in the World Twenty20, only for South Africa and England to take cue and expose their frailties against the bouncer. Virender Sehwag's unavailability must have made the decision easier.

It is a short-term selection all right, one that as of now doesn't keep the 2011 World Cup in mind; a lot of it anyway depends on how well Dravid does during the tri-series in Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy. The selectors see him as a bridge for the Rainas and the Rohits, who have the obvious talent, but are yet to graduate to the next level. Rohit Sharma will surely be disappointed, but dejected he shouldn't be. He will know he needs better than four half-centuries in 41 matches to show for the talent he has. Perhaps the selectors also thought that in performing the Dravid-type role, in giving the other big-hitters the license, MS Dhoni might have lost his explosive game a bit.

Dravid is quite familiar with that "Dravid-like" role. He has batted around the Gangulys, the Sehwags and the Tendulkars all throughout his ODI career. Not much will change for him this time around. It's quite possible that he comes back and finds that ODI cricket has indeed changed drastically, but come Sri Lanka not much will have changed in Dravid's commitment.
Sidharth Monga is a staff writer at Cricinfo

http://www.cricinfo.com/sltri09/content/current/story/419886.html

[12th_Man]

Ojha in place of Mishra chould have been tried ? But again what wrong had Mishra done. How bad is VS's injury ? Or is there more ?

[keep-it-cool]

Mishra is an interesting (and well deserved) selection. He has done very well in both versions of the IPL and in the recent Emerging Players Tournament as well ...of course, it is tough on Ojha ...should probably have looked at the option of going with all three of them. Maybe, Yuvi's left arm spin option worked against Ojha.

[broadbat]

There may not be much for the spinners to do during the early part of the SA season, unlike the IPL which was  held at the fag end ( or was it over?) of the season.

[keep-it-cool]

I was talking primarily about the SL series. I agree, for the CT, it may not make sense to have too many spinners.

[broadbat]

They are using the tri series as sort of a warm up for the more important CT hence the same team for both.

[ganavk]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2009/aug/19/rahul-dravid-vinod-kambli-career

Dileep Ramachandran on RD and Kambi!
Rahul Dravid and Vinod Kambli played 27 one-day matches together over a four-year period. One made his debut at the age of 19, the half of the high-school duo that had "taken the stairs" while Sachin Tendulkar "took the elevator". The other had played more than 50 first-class matches before getting the India cap. One's stolid style was considered unsuitable for the slam-bang version of the game. The other, all flair and Caribbean-style flamboyance, seemed perfect for it. The natural finished with 2,477 runs at a modest average of 32.59, while the misfit has been recalled at the age of 36, having scored 8,000 runs more.

Their career graphs are best illustrated by a comparison of performances in the games played together. Dravid scored 1,181 runs at 59, with three centuries and eight 50s, while Kambli's aggregate was a measly 339 at 16. In October 2000 he was dropped after a poor outing in Sharjah. He never played for India again. Last weekend he announced his retirement from international cricket. For whatever reason, it made the news and made people remember him, if only because chances of a recall had been as likely as Tendulkar making an appearance on Strictly Come Dancing.

In the years to come Kambli will be both cautionary tale and trivia question. After all, how many play their last Test at the age of 23 and finish with an average of 54? On the Waterfront's "I could have been a contender" line will always shadow his every step but one man who knew him better than most insists that he shouldn't be judged too harshly. "I don't know why people keep talking of how he lost his way," says Dravid. "To come from where he did, a very humble background, and to achieve what he did ... he has a lot to be proud of. He scored two double-hundreds in Test cricket. That's no joke.

"I didn't play all that much with him but he was a good man. A real team man, always full of energy and enthusiasm. Of course it's a shame that his career panned out the way it did, especially for the huge following that he had."

While Dravid contemplates a return to the coloured-clothes fold after nearly two years on the sidelines, another Mumbai talent who came into the side with rave reviews must indulge in a spot of introspection. As recently as early June, Rohit Sharma was providing ample evidence of his shot-making talent in a Twenty20 warm-up game against Pakistan. But West Indies and England sorted him out with short-pitched bowling in the tournament, and when the team then proceeded to the Caribbean for a one-day series he had scores of 4, 0 and 11.

Dravid's recall is ostensibly to bolster the batting for the Champions Trophy, with Virender Sehwag yet to regain full fitness after his IPL injury. While there are whispers that some in the selection panel see it purely as a stopgap arrangement, there's little doubt that a run of decent scores in Sri Lanka – India play a triangular in early September also featuring New Zealand – and South Africa will enhance his chances of an improbable fourth World Cup appearance.

Over the coming days questions will be asked about Rohit and the failure to convert potential into performance. Some will say the pressures and temptations are far greater now when compared with Kambli's day but Dravid disagrees. "Talented cricketers not making it is not a new phenomenon," he says, perhaps thinking of contemporaries such as Graeme Hick and Mark Ramprakash. "It's been there in every generation. Part of the challenge of international cricket is to be able to cope with stuff off the field as well."

Dravid himself spent time on the one-day sidelines before blossoming into a fine middle-order bat and Rohit's exile is likely to be a brief one. What it has done, though, is throw some light on the convoluted route that today's youngsters must take to establish themselves in the game. Manish Pandey, who announced himself with an IPL century for Kevin Pietersen's Royal Challengers, will turn 20 next month. He has played 15 Twenty20 games and merely five first-class ones. When the time comes to replace Tendulkar and Dravid in the Test side you could end up with candidates who do not even have five first-class centuries to their name. Tendulkar may have made it to the team at 16 but he had pillaged centuries at every level when playing for Mumbai and West Zone.

Times have changed and Dravid accepts that a first-class foundation is no longer mandatory. But how will it affect the long-term development of young talent? There are no easy answers. "I can only say that I benefited a lot from playing all those first-class games early in my career," he says. "They taught me about my game and also how to handle success and failure. It's different now but many of the kids I see coming through are mature and confident enough to handle things."

How well Rohit and others handle the plaudits and brickbats that Dame Fortune throws their way will determine whether they go the Kambli way or take the Dravid route. At 20 Mike Tyson was the youngest heavyweight champion in history. By 31, he was trying to embrace cannibalism in the ring. Well begun really only is half done.