India named the following squads on Tuesday for September's Twenty20 World Cup and the seven-game one-day series against hosts England from Aug 21.
MUMBAI: Wicket-keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni will lead a revamped India team missing five top stars at the inaugural Twenty20 World Championships in South Africa in September.
Regular captain Rahul Dravid and senior pros Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Venkatsai Laxman and Zaheer Khan did not feature in the 15-man squad announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday.
Agressive opener Virender Sehwag, off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and all-rounder Irfan Pathan make a comeback after being dropped for the ongoing tour of England.
Pathan will be joined in the squad by his elder brother, 24-year-old Yusuf, who is set to make his international debut as a hard-hitting batsman and off-spinner.
Dhoni, 26, who is India's one-day vice-captain, was the preferred choice to lead after Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Zaheer opted out of the tournament and Laxman was not considered.
India, reluctant to embrace a new format which has proved popular with audiences worldwide, have played just one Twenty20 international so far, against South Africa in Johannesburg last December.
India won that game by a flattering six-wicket margin, chasing down South Africa's 126-9 with one delivery to spare.
The 12-nation Twenty20 world championships will be played in three South African cities, Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban, from September 11-24.
India are drawn with Pakistan and Scotland in group D of the preliminary league, with the top two advancing to the Super Eights round.
The tournament features the nine nations currently playing Test cricket along with Zimbabwe, Kenya and Scotland.
India's 15-member squad for Twenty-20 World Cup: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Yuvraj Singh (vice-captain), Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Ajit Agarkar, Dinesh Kaarthick, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Joginder Sharma, Yusuf Pathan, Piyush Chawla, S Sreesanth, Irfan Pathan, Rudra Pratap Singh and Rohit Sharma.
India's 15-member squad for 7 ODIs against England: Rahul Dravid (captain), Mahendra Singh Dhoni (vice-captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Ramesh Powar, Dinesh Kaarthick, Zaheer Khan, Munaf Patel, Piyush Chawla, Rudra Pratap Singh, Rohit Sharma, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir and Ajit Agarkar.
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