Team to Sri Lanka to be picked today

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, JULY 8. The National selectors will have a little more leeway, while picking the Indian team for the tri-series in Sri Lanka, starting at Premadasa Stadium, Colombo from Wednesday, July 18 with a match between Sri Lanka and New Zealand. The selectors, who meet here on Monday will be asked to choose fifteen players because the Board of Control for Cricket in Sri Lanka (BCCSL) has informed its Indian counterpart that it will follow the World Cup rules. This was revealed by the BCCI Hon. Secretary, Mr. Jaywant Lele from Baroda.

For the tri-series in Zimbabwe, which India lost in the final to the West Indies in Harare on Saturday, the selectors first reduced the team from 15 members to 14 after the second Test in Harare. The team management, however, was allowed to retain left arm seamer Ashish Nehra as the 15th member, following his impressive showing in the two-Test series.

India's captain Sourav Ganguly and coach John Wright will join the selectors less than 12 hours after returning home on Sunday midnight. It will also provide an opportunity for the selectors to extract feedback from the top brass of the Indian team about the setbacks (defeat in the second Test and the final) in Zimbabwe.

The selectors, along with captain Ganguly and coach Wright put their heads together and nominated a pack of seamers for the short Test series and the Coca Cola tri-series in Zimbabwe. That was almost two months ago in Bangalore. On Monday, they same group of men are likely to consider picking a second specialist spinner at the expense of a seamer. Ganguly had, for the tri- series in Zimbabwe, the luxury of two left arm seamers Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra and three of the right arm variety in Ajit Agarkar, Debasish Mohanty and Harvinder Singh. He will be just and fair should he ask for a second spinner for the tri-series in Sri Lanka. Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh performed a task manfully in Zimbabwe, but Ganguly will feel the necessity of having an option in Sri Lanka, the conditions there are likely to be different than what his team faced in Zimbabwe. Sunil Joshi's record against Sri Lanka doesn't make a front runner. He has played six matches, taken four wickets for an average that is a fraction close to 50. He has played three against New Zealand and taken as many wickets at 34.66.

Mumbai's leg spinner Sairaj Bahutule returned home after the Test series in Zimbabwe. So picking a second spinner should not turn into a brain teaser. The selectors will have to pick either left arm spinner Rahul Sanghvi or Sarandeep Singh.

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