Ganguly fails to make it

MOHALI, Sunday - The national selectors kept their faith in the team that won the first two one-day internationals against Sri Lanka and overlooked former captain Sourav Ganguly despite the fact that he had proved both form and fitness with a Duleep Trophy century for East Zone against North Zone recently.

Kiran More, chairman of selectors, and his panel deliberated for less than half an hour and announced an unchanged squad of 15 for the next three matches. Where this leaves Ganguly, and his one-day career, is not exactly clear.

"He is fit but does not figure in the team at the moment," said More at a press conference following the announcement of the squad. "We have selected the best side possible for the next three matches.

Sourav is a great player. We have tremendous regard for his outstanding performance as batsman and captain, and things are not in his favour at the moment."

More said. "We have enough options at the moment and are looking to have a pool of 22 players from whom we can pick the final World Cup squad."

The squad for the last two matches of the seven-match series will be picked in Ahmedabad on November 6.

India squad

Rahul Dravid (capt), Ajit Agarkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Gautam Gambhir, Murali Kartik, Irfan Pathan, Suresh Raina, Y Venugopala Rao, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Rudra Pratap Singh, Yuvraj Singh, S Sreesanth, Sachin Tendulkar, Jai Prakash Yadav. - [Cricinfo]