2011 World Cup - India announce their 30 member squad

India announced their 30-member squad for the World Cup today. I had come up with my expected list 4 months back.

The squad named is as follows:

1. Openers - Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane
2. Middle-order - Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma,  Ravindra Jadeja, Saurabh Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Cheteshwar Pujara
3. Pace bowlers - Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Ishant Sharma, Vinay Kumar, Praveen Kumar
4. Spinners - Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla, R Ashwin
5. Wicket-keepers - MS Dhoni, Dinesh Karthik, Parthiv Patel, Wriddhiman Saha 

The ones highlighted in blue are the changes from the ones I had selected. While no major surprises were there, selection of 4 wicket-keepers was a luxury that one never imagined. Parthiv's two fifties in the NZ ODIs has helped the selectors choose him. Mithun and Dinda were left out - both must have felt disappointed after being part of the ODI squads earlier this year.

Overall, a squad where the major challenge will be to prune this list down to 15.

Related articles

• India select squads for NZ ODIs and SA series (myhistoryisinteresting.blogspot.com)