Srikkanth says well-balanced side

Chennai, Sep 29 (IBNS) Indian selectors infused young blood in the team while leaving out off-colour Harbhajan Singh for the first two ODIs of the five-match series against England starting October 14.

Young spinner Rahul Sharma and paceman Sreenath Aravind were the two new faces in India´s depleted 15-member squadd.

Gautam Gambhir, who missed the ODI series in the tour of England because of concussion, returned to the squad.

The Kris Srikkanth-led selection committee also decided to leave out Sachin Tendulkar, Zaheer Khan, Virender Sehwag and Yuvraj Singh since they are down with injuries.

Vidharba paceman Umesh Yadav and Jharkhand speedster Varun Aaron also figured in the team announced by new BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale after a marathon meeting of the selection committee here. The young bowling attack will be sperahead by Praveen Kumar

Parthiv Patel and Ajinkya Rahane, who were a part of the England ODIs, were rewarded for their good show.

Chief selector Kris Srikkanth said Dhoni and new selector Jimmy was present at the meeting, where a very balanced side was chosen.

"We have selected the team just for the first two ODIs and after the Delhi match we will select the team for next matches. We have big series coming up against West Indies followed by the tour of Australia," he added.

"Fitness will be properly scrutinised. We will go by the NCA report and will be strict with fitness issues, unless players are 100 per cent fit, they themselves will not like to play," he said.

Srikkanth said the selection committee have not compromised on quality.

"It is a well-balanced side, a rejuvenated one, and even Dhoni is confident we will do well in future," he added.

Srikkanth said the new team is free from injuries and backed the juniors to do well.

"We had a pretty young side in England and we did well, although we didn´t win any match but that was more to do with the injuries and rain, or otherwise we could have won a few matches at least.

The first ODI of the five-match series will be played in Hyderabad on October 14,, while Delhi will host the second game on October 17. Mohali (Oct 20), Mumbai (Oct 23) and Kolkata (Oct 25) will stage the other three matches.

Kolkata will also conduct the lone Twenty20 match against England on October 29.

The team: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Parthiv Patel, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav, R Vinay Kumar, Sreenath Aravind, Rahul Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, Praveen Kumar.