Ganguly retained captain to lead India in Asia Cup

MUMBAI, MAY. 5. India's most successful first-class batsman this season, V.V.S. Laxman of Hyderabad finds himself out in the cold, as the National selection committee omitted his name from a list of 25 probables picked for a conditioning camp prior to the Asia Cup in Dhaka later this month.

The five-man selection committee which met at the Brabourne Stadium today, retained Sourav Ganguly as captain of the Indian Asia Cup team. It left out Laxman, Venkatesh Prasad, one half of India's most experienced medium pace duo of the last five seasons, and wicketkeeper Sameer Dighe among others from the list of 25.

Laxman, who scored 1415 runs including eight hundreds in nine Ranji matches, was left out from the 25 who will assemble in Pune from May 15 to 24 for the conditioning camp. The Indian team for the Asia Cup will be announced on May 22. The decision to leave out Laxman from what is an exhaustive list of ``cricketers in contention'' was taken because, in the words of chairman of selectors Chandu Borde, ``we all feel that he'll be more useful for Test cricket.'' Borde agreed that Laxman's performance in the one-day series in Australia was ``one of the conditions'' that led to the Hyderabad stylist's omission.

``It's not the number of runs (Laxman has scored in the Ranji Trophy) alone, it is a question of whether he can fit in the team. We have to have a team which can have a better balance.''

The Pune camp will be attended by skipper Ganguly but the Indian Board has given exemption to Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble from the camp because of their commitments with their county teams, Kent and Leicestershire. Ganguly has informed the Board he will be in India on May 13. Indian team physiotherapist Andrew Leipus will also in attendance at the camp.

Laxman's omission raised the most heat at the media briefing this afternoon and Borde defended the choice of Tamil Nadu left-hander S. Sriram in the middle order over Laxman - by saying, ``Sriram's local performance has been very good. Not only is he a batsman, but he can also bowl and he is a good fielder, we considered his performances in the Ranji and Duleep Trophy as well,'' Borde explained.

The reason for selecting a large number of 25 probables for a tournament lasting 11 days (May 28 to June 7) was put down to the weather. ``It is very hot (in Pune) and it will give them all a chance to get acclimitised,'' said Borde, without explaining fully why the Board needed 25 cricketers to get used to weather conditions in Pune. ``The players are coming out of a non- practice time and this will serve as a full-fledged conditioning camp. Plus we will also need a lot of bowlers as well.''

Board secretary Jaywant Lele deflected all questions pertaining to the naming of Kapil Dev in the match-fixing scandal with a stout, ``we have no comment to offer.'' The reason Kapil Dev was not invited for this particular meeting was because ``we don't call the coach for meetings when we select the captain and when we select probables.''

Kapil Dev's comments about a six-month moratorium for the Indian team was brushed aside, Lele saying, ``these are international commitments and we have to honour them. A six month ban is his opinion. We will take up the matter with him at the appropriate time.''

The list of probables is:Sourav Ganguly (captain/ Ben), Sachin Tendulkar (Mum), Mohammed Azharuddin (Hyderabad), Ajay Jadeja, Rahul Dravid (Kar), Anil Kumble (Kar), Jacob Martin (Bar), Hemang Badani (TN), Mohammed Kaif (U.P.), S.S. Das (Ori), Robin Singh (TN), Reetinder Singh Sodhi (Pun), Vinod Kambli (Mum), Ajit Agarkar (Mum), T. Kumaran (TN), Amit Bhandari (Del), Zaheer Khan (Bar), Nayan Mongia (Bar), Saba Karim (Ben), Nikhil Chopra (Del), S. Sriram (TN), S. Ramesh (TN), Sunil Joshi (Kar), Hrishikesh Kanitkar (Mah) and Murali Kartik (Rly).

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