Performance rewarded

The five wise men of Indian cricket took a little over an hour on Monday to hand Yuvraj Singh a chance to resurrect his ODI career. The left-hander has been included in the 15-man squad that will take on Australia in a T20 and ODI series at home. M.S. Dhoni was named skipper of the side. The selection is only for the one-off T20 and first three ODIs. Even though the selectors paved the way for Yuvi’s comeback, they weren’t yet ready to welcome Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir back, understandably so as a result of the Delhi duo’s prolonged poor form. In what might have been a close call, the selectors decided to shut the door on wicketkeeper batsman Dinesh Karthik and replaced him with Yuvraj. After amassing 337 runs in five List ‘A’ matches at an average of 67.40, Yuvraj no doubt deserved his place. The selection committee retained 28-year-old Ambati Rayudu, who made his debut against Zimbabwe in July and has an impressive average of 50.50, for the important series. Rayudu’s presence meant there was no place for either Sehwag or Gambhir. Reinforcing the unwritten rule that no one in the team can take his spot for granted, pacer Umesh Yadav, who was part of the successful Champions Trophy team, was dropped following his mediocre show in the NKP Salve Challenger trophy. Left-arm seamer Jaydev Unadkat, Bengal pacer Mohammed Shami and the experienced Vinay Kumar have been given an extended run taking into account their consistent performances in Zimbabwe and for India ‘A’. As expected, lead spinner R. Ashwin, Ishant Sharma and Bhuvneshwar Kumar have made their way back into the team after being rested for the Zimbabwe series. The squad has a lot of all-round options for Dhoni to make use of.