Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Tendulkar named as World Cup squad



Injured Tendulkar named in India's cricket World Cup squad.

Indian cricket star Sachin Tendulkar has been included in his country's 15-man World Cup squad, despite doubts over the opener's fitness ahead of next month's competition.

Tendulkar was forced to withdraw from India's ongoing tour of South Africa on Saturday after straining his right hamstring.

The 37-year-old has scored a record 17,629 runs in 444 one-day internationals, but has played just four over the last 12 months in order to focus on Test cricket.

However, the world's leading one-day and Test batsman was named in the squad for the February 19 to April 2 tournament, which is to be jointly hosted by India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

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The south east Asian nation's one-day side -- currently level with South Africa at one game a piece in the best-of-five match series -- have also been missing batsmen Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir as well as fast bowler Praveen Kumar through injury.

"I am not worried at all about the injuries, these are part of the game," Krishnamachari Srikkanth, India's chairman of selectors told reporters in Chennai following the team announcement on Monday.

"I am confident the team will be fully fit when the World Cup starts," he added.

India hold second place behind Australia in the official one-day rankings, ahead of co-hosts Sri Lanka, England and South Africa.

Led by captain and wicketkeeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni, India have been drawn with England, the West Indies, Bangladesh, Ireland, the Netherlands and South Africa in group B of cricket's 10th World Cup.

Defending champions Australia head group A with Pakistan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Canada and Kenya completing the line up for the tournament.

Following the round-robin stages, four teams from each group will qualify for the quarterfinals.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i am agree with the lara,s statement because little master has so much brilliant that is why india has selected him for the world cup squad inspite of his injury which is good to see . and hope he will do well in the world cup matches

Cricket World Cup 2011