Rediff News

Feb 3: Virender Sehwag and Munaf Patel on Saturday were recalled to the Indian one-day squad for the first two one-day internationals against Sri Lanka.

The Indian selectors, who met at the newly-constructed BCCI headquarters at the Wankhede stadium in Mumbai, named a 15-man squad for the two matches to be played in Kolkata (February 8) and Rajkot (February 11).

Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina and Ramesh Powar were dropped from the squad that played in the last match against the West Indies.

Chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar said that Sehwag would bat in the middle order.

"Sehwag will bat at 4, 5 for 6. We would like to see him bat in the middle order," he said.

The Delhi opener was not selected for the one-day series against the West Indies after a string of failures in South Africa.

"He was out of form, so we wanted to give him a break. He has been practicing a lot, so we hope that he plays well. He can bowl a bit of off-spin too, so that will help," Vengsarkar added.

On being asked whether Sehwag is on trial, Vengsarkar said: "I can't say that but he needs to perform in these two games."

S Sreesanth struggled in the one-dayers against the West Indies, but was given the nod ahead of Mumbai off-spinner Powar.

"Sreesanth needs to adjust his length, especially on Indian wickets. He pitches it up, but there is not much of movement here. So the length is the problem," Vengsarkar said.

Munaf, who was advised a second MRI scan by BCCI physician Anant Joshi on Friday, was also named in the squad.

"Munaf is fully fit. We have got the reports," BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah said.

Vengsarkar also hinted that the in-form Sachin Tendulkar could be rested for the latter part of the Sri Lanka series.

Squad: Rahul Dravid (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Dinesh Karthik, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, S Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh.