All-rounder Yusuf Pathan and young left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha were on Friday rewarded for their good showing in the Indian Premier League as the selectors announced a young 15-member squad for the forthcoming tri-series in Bangladesh and the Asia Cup in Pakistan.
Apart from the two new faces, the selection panel, headed by Dilip Vengsarkar, recalled seamer R P Singh, who replaces Munaf Patel, a member of the squad that won the tri-series in Australia earlier this year.
Besides Patel, the selectors dropped Manoj Tiwary and Dinesh Karthik and ignored former captains Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid again.
Sachin Tendulkar made himself unavailable for the two assignments as he has not recovered fully from a prolonged groin injury.
Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh, the other senior member of the side, also missed out on a berth as he has been banned for five one-dayers after being found guilty of slapping national teammate S Sreesanth during an IPL match last month.
Squad: M S Dhoni (captain), Yuvraj Singh (vice-captain), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Irfan Pathan, Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, S Sreesanth, Yusuf Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh, Piyush Chawla, Pragyan Ojha.
