Zaheer Khan failed to find a place in newly-crowned Ranji Trophy champions Mumbai’s squad for the five-day Irani Cup match against the Rest of India, beginning at the Wankhede stadium on February 6, as he has not yet recovered from the calf injury sustained at the start of this month.
"Zaheer is not yet fit and it seems he would need at least three weeks to regain fitness," informed Mumbai Cricket Association's secretary Nitin Dalal after Wednesday's selection committee meeting.
The senior left-arm pacer, who was injured during Mumbai's last league game against Gujarat at the D Y Patil stadium, thus appears in doubt for at least the initial part of the four-Test series against Australia, commencing with the first match at Chennai from February 22.
Zaheer has not played since sustaining the injury and missed Mumbai's matches in the Ranji knock-out phase that culminated in their 40th title triumph two days ago.
Mumbai made two changes to the 15-men squad that won the Ranji final by an innings and 125 runs in under three days against Saurashtra, bringing in Ajinkya Rahane and Rohit Sharma for Nikhil Patil Jr. and Sushant Marathe.
"The rest of the squad remains the same," he added.
Rest of India will be led by Virender Sehwag.
Mumbai squad: Ajit Agarkar (captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Wasim Jaffer, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Dhaval Kulkarni, Kaustubh Pawar, Abhishek Nayar, Hiken Shah, Aditya Tare, Ankit Chavan, Javed Khan, Shardul Thakur and Vishal Dabholkar.
