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Sunday, July 07, 2013

Zimbabwe Series

What can I say about this one when I said this about the ongoing tri-series.

What was interesting is not the team selected for the ODI series against Zimbabwe but the 'A' team selection for tour to South Africa.

India A squad: Cheteshwar Pujara (capt.), Shikhar Dhawan, M Vijay, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Dinesh Karthik, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha, Parvez Rasool, Shahbaz Nadeem, Shami Ahmed, Stuart Binny, Ishwar Pandey, Jaydev Unadkat, Siddarth Kaul

The team is captained by the current No.3 batsman and contains both the openers who played against Australia in the last test match (well, Dhawan would have played if he had not been injured). Then, there are couple of folks who are in contention for the No. 6 slot (Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina). If Stuart Binny can redeem himself with a good performance, he could well given Irfan Pathan a run for his money for the slot of the coveted all-rounder position in the senior team.

Definitely, a good move by the selectors to ensure that the young players from the Indian team get a chance to experience the conditions first-hand before the test series starts later. There is no doubt that the test matches will be a different cup of tea with the likes of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, but nevertheless this experience will be handy. One would have liked Ravindra Jadeja to be part of the tour as well since he is Dhoni's No. 7 batsman (and as Dhoni has admitted that Jadeja has to work on his batting).

The bowlers in this list seem to be relatively new and unknown (with only Shami Ahmed having some recent experience and Unadkat with that unexpected test debut during the last South African tour). The selectors have to be credited for this move to get the youngsters some exposure - another feather in the cap for Sandeep Patil and Co. 

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