The national selectors continued to ignore veteran speedster Javagal Srinath and today inducted relative newcomers J P Yadav and L Balaji in the 20-member list of probables for next month’s ICC Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka. Sourav Ganguly expectedly has been retained captain for the tournament, billed as the ‘Mini World Cup”, to be held in Colombo from September 12 to 29.

Barring the inclusion of all-rounder J P Yadav of Railways and Tamil Nadu fast bowler L Balaji, there were no other surprises in the list. The selectors have retained all the 15 players who had toured England for the NatWest Trophy limited overs series. Young Gujarat wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel, who joined the team in England for the Test series, has also been included in the list of probables along with Ajay Ratra.

BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah told reporters here that though the selectors discussed Srinath’s name, “they did not consider him in the probables’ list”. Shah said Ganguly had been handling the team quite well, particularly in the one-dayers - winning the one-day series in the West Indies 2-1 and the Natwest series in England recently - and hence the selectors decided to retain him as captain.

Probables: Sourav Ganguly (captain), Virender Sehwag, Dinesh Mongia, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammed Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Ashish Nehra, Parthiv Patel, Ajay Ratra, V V S Laxman, Murali Kartik, J P Yadav, Sanjay Bangar, L Balaji and Tinu Yohannan. 

The selection could dash the World Cup hopes of Srinath, who had earlier expressed his desire to play in one-day internationals while announcing his retirement from Test cricket, as Shah said the selection was made keeping in mind the next year’s World Cup in South Africa. “The selectors have picked the players keeping in view the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and all the players who did duty in the Natwest series have been retained after their good showing,” Shah added.

“The 15-member team would be selected here either on August 9 or 10 as we have to send the list of the players before August 12 to the host nation,” he added. Left-arm spinner Murali Kartik and his Railways teammate Sanjay Bangar are also back in contention in the one-day team after being left out of the squad for the NatWest series.