Indian Squad for 1st two ODI's

Just when no one seemed to be bothered the national selectors have announced the ODI squad for the 1st two ODI's against South Africa. Yuvi remains injured and is ruled out but joining him is Gauti in that injury list. Bhajji wants to share some brother love so he's missing the ODI series as well to attend his sister's marriage. So, lots of seats up for grabs one might think. Here's how they faired.

• IN

Sachin(yes, as he missed the ODI tri-series in B'desh)
Yusuf P (some mad monkey hitting gets him a berth)
Abhishek Nayar (Finally!)
R Ashwin (spinner & Tamil)
PK (Praveen Kumar)




• OUT

Yuvraj (waiting for IPL)
Gambhir (new delicate dolly of the team)
Bhajji (family comes first, country goto H***)
Ishant (picked, dropped, picked again, dropped again...)
Sree (manages to puzzle everyone)
Ojha (ahem.. who? why?)




• Lucky

DK (still there.. backup wk??)
Jadeja (In the news lately for all the wrong reasons, very very lucky indeed)
Tyagi (dint play much, doubtful that will change anytime soon)
Mishra-ji (now the spin leader, No Bhajji, no Ojha PARTY!! :D)




• Unlucky

Pandey (With 2 batting slots open he should have made it purely on merit)
Mithun (If he was chosen in the Test squad, he deserved a chance here.)

So, the team: M S Dhoni (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Virat Kohli, Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Sudeep Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Abhishek Nayar, Yusuf Pathan and Amit Mishra.

• 1st ODI - 21.Feb - Jaipur
• 2nd ODI - 24.Feb - Gwalior

W.W.W.S. - SAF's tour of India Begins

• The Proteas started the Indian tour on a bold note against the Board President’s xi crucial warm-up match. Captain Smith had his intentions clear giving all his bowlers and his batsmen good bowling practice ahead of the most awaited (read retarded) 2 match test series yet. His frontline pace attack made mince meat of the top order. The day was severe on high reputations, as Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Abhinav Mukund all failed miserably. Pandey disappointed as well but, since he outscored all named previously and he attacked the bowlers he is pardoned. Biff gave his spinners a dozen overs each and this allowed Abhishek Nayar and Shikhar Dhawan who came 6-down (can you believe that) to build a partnership. Nayar scored a ton exactly and Dhawan was dismissed at 70 and thus the BPxi bundled out for 318 on day 1 of the warm up game. Saffers looked happy, Biff satisfied.. nice lunch I suppose.



• The Duleep trophy final also started with very less attention as both teams looked depleted due to players unavailability. South Zone led by Dinesh-butter-fingers-Karthik won the toss and decided to bat first. West zone ran through the top order and then entered captain Dinesh-I-can-fukin-bat-Karthik. He took the responsibility once again and restored some respect at the end of day one. Karthik unbeaten on 161 with the help of Gautam and Sathish have taken the SZ’s score to 356/6 at stumps.



• Meanwhile, the bite-gate controversy only involved more cheers. Shahid BoOm bOom Afridi claimed he was only trying to smell the ball and feel it. You can do that Shahid but please, avoid doing that with your teeth next time. Since he is banned for 2 T20 internationals and they are playing just one against Australia and he is the captain of Pakistan in T20’s PCB have announced Shoaib Malik will lead the team for the game against the Aussies.



• Ottis Gibson will now take over as the new coach of the West Indies confirmed WICB. Only, he won’t take over immediately but, from the home series against Zimbabwe.