Ganguly included in Champs squad

Former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly has been surprisingly recalled, in being named in the 30-man squad for the ICC Champions Trophy to be played in India in October-November.

Ganguly had a bad run in English county cricket for Northamptonshire recently where he averaged only 4.80 from six first class innings.

Ganguly’s last appearance in the one-day national team was in September last year in Zimbabwe where a tri-series was played out against the host nation and New Zealand.

Kiran More, the chairman of the selectors said although Ganguly’s performances in England were poor, he was selected on his performances in the previous Indian domestic season and his past international performances.

Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble and VVS Laxman have also been named in the 30-man squad, while S Badrinath, Tejinder Pal Singh, Piyush Chawla and Parthiv Patel have also been named after good performances in the Top End Series in Australia in July.

Murali Kartik and Lakshmipathy Balaji weren’t considered due to injury, and need more recovery time but are still in the frame More has said.

The squad will be cut to 15 players on September 7th.

India Squad
Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Suresh Raina, Irfan Pathan, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Harbhajan Singh, Ramesh Powar, Dinesh Mongia, Ajit Agarkar, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Rudra Pratap Singh, Sourav Ganguly, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, VVS Laxman, Venugopal Rao, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Piyush Chawla, S Badrinath, Rohit Sharma, TP Singh, Shib Paul, VRV Singh, Parthiv Patel, Dinesh Karthik.