Rahul Dravid is to make a return to one-day international cricket after being picked for India's tri-series trip to Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy in South Africa.The Indian selectors have picked a common 15-member squad for both the ODI tri-series in Sri Lanka and the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa.The 36-year-old, who last played an ODI in October 2007 against Australia in seven match series in Nagpur, is included in India's tri-series trip to Sri Lanka and the Champions Trophy in South Africa.
Indian selectors hope the 36-year-old will bolster the batting in the Champions Trophy on pacy South African pitches. A young Indian batting unit struggled against short-pitched bowling at the Twenty20 World Cup in England.As expected, Tendulkar who made himself unavailable for the four-match ODI series in the West Indies in June-July, is back to the squad along with Suresh Raina. Selectors have also retained wicketkeeper-batsman Dinesh Karthik and all-rounder Abhishek Nayar, while leg-spinner Amit Mishra is picked at the expense of left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha. Medium pacer Praveen Kumar pipped a promising Sudeep Tyagi and gets a ticket to fly to Sri Lanka and South Africa
Explosive opening batsman Virender Sehwag is not in the squad as he is yet to recover from the shoulder injury sustained in the IPL.Fast bowler Zaheer Khan was already ruled out because of a shoulder injury.The tri-series in Sri Lanka, which has New Zealand as the third team, is set to begin on September 8 while the eight-nation Champions Trophy will be held from September 24 to October 5.
The squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain and WK), Yuvraj Singh(VC),Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Gautham Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Nayyar, Harbhajan Singh, Amit Mishra, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Rudra Pratap Singh.
