Piyush Chawla
The national team for the ICC Cricket World Cup was picked and announced in Chennai. The squad was predictable except the surprise pick of Piyush Chawla ahead of Rohit Sharma. Given the time between two games, there were no substitute keepers.The team consisted of 6 specialist batsmen, 5 specialist bowlers, 1 wicket keeper batsman in Dhoni and one batting allrounder in Yusuf Pathan.
As expected R Ashwin, though being left out of the recent games, were picked in the squad. Yusuf Pathan’s bowling and aggressive lower order batting could prove handy. Another eyebrow raiser was the omission of Pragyan Ojha who was so far picked to assist Harbhajan in tests.
It is to be noted that Piyush Chawla played his last game in July 2008 though he was a part of the T20 team that played in the West Indies. Also none of the 21 games he has played so far have been in India.
The chairman of selectors was confident that this team would script its name in the trophy after 28 years, given its form in the limited overs game over the last two years.
Squad for the ICC Cricket World Cup: MS Dhoni (Captain & Wicketkeeper), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, R Ashwin, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra.
Tags: Ashish Nehra, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, ICC Cricket World Cup, Indian Squad, MS Dhoni, Munaf Patel, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, R Ashwin, Sachin Tendulkar, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Virender Sehwag, Yusuf Pathan, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan
