Ganguly unlikely for Pakistan tour

Sourav Ganguly may not find a berth when the team takes off for Pakistan © AFP Enlarge

All things being equal Sourav Ganguly will not make the cut to the Indian squad for the tour of Pakistan. As things stand the selectors are set to leave him out of the 15- or 16-man squad they will select tomorrow.

In the absence of a specific directive from the board insisting that he be picked, Ganguly will continue to be out of the national team, Cricinfo has learned. Till late on Thursday there was no directive from the board to the selectors but too much cannot be read into that. Sharad Pawar is anyway scheduled to meet the coach and chairman of selectors on Friday evening.

The selectors are believed to be in favour of picking four seamers, two spinners, eight batsmen and one wicketkeeper, if they pick 15, and an extra seamer if they pick 16. This means that Murali Kartik, who did not play a part in the three-Test home series against Sri Lanka, will miss out. With a high possibility of Zaheer Khan returning, the shoot out for the last slot could be between RP Singh and VRV Singh. Zaheer has picked 10 wickets in his last two Ranji games, apart from being the leading wicket-taker in the Duleep Trophy, and there's little more he can do to prove that the time is ripe for a recall.

With Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir struggling to make big scores, Wasim Jaffer's selection as reserve opener is a virtual certainty. Although Jaffer did not play in the final XI at Ahmedabad he was very much in the mix, and the fact that he is in the best form of his life ensures that no-one will get ahead of him in the queue. If the BCCI approves of a 16-member squad the selectors will choose between taking an additional wicketkeeper, and keeping Kartik in the squad as a reserve spinner.

Before the Ahmedabad Test there was some doubt on whether Yuvraj Singh had done enough to shut the door on Ganguly. His second innings 75, off just 83 balls, was a strokefilled innings where he took the attack to the spinners so viciously that Marvan Atapattu underbowled Muttiah Muralitharan at one stage. On the back of his 77, a more studied and cautious innings, at Delhi, this has convinced the last of the skeptics of Yuvraj's value at No. 6 ahead of Ganguly.

The selection committee is set to meet in Mumbai on Saturday morning. Kiran More, the chairman of selectors, will also attend a meeting with the board president, secretary and coach to finalise the list of centrally contracted players for the coming year.

Likely squad for Pakistan tour Rahul Dravid (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Mahendra Dhoni (wk), Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh and/or VRV Singh.