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Former captain Sourav Ganguly appears to be on the top of the list
Nine months after being sidelined from Team India, former captain Sourav Ganguly appears to be on the top of the list of players who will make it to South Africa for the three-Test series.When the five-member panel, headed by Dilip Vengsarkar meets here on Thursday, Ganguly along with left-hand opener Gautam Gambhir and seamer VRV Singh are likely to be included. “It’s going to be a long meeting,’’ said one selector on condition of anonymity.
It is learnt that the team management and the selectors have run out of patience with the “grooming process’’ and are keen to get the “experienced players’’ back in the team. Youngster Suresh Raina will be the first to bear the brunt of it. Raina, Dinesh Mongia and Ajit Agarkar are the three players who are expected to return from South Africa after the ODI series ends on Sunday.With Rahul Dravid injured and unlikely to play the first Test beginning on December 15 at Johannesburg, the selectors want to bring in some stability to the middle-order by picking Ganguly. Recently, he struck a century for East Zone against North in the Duleep Trophy.
The other contender for the middle-order berth is S. Badrinath, of Tamil Nadu, who has scored 636 runs from seven matches in the Ranji Trophy last season. However, the selectors are keen to give one last chance to Ganguly. If the left-hander is indeed selected in the final XI and does well, he may make it to the World Cup team too, sources indicated.The selectors are also likely to discuss the case of left-hand medium-pacer Irfan Pathan who has not been outof-form for some time now. With Zaheer Khan bowling well in the ODI series, Pathan is a borderline case.Wasim Jaffer, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid (captain), Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Mohd Kaif, MS Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik (wicket-keeper), Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Munaf Patel, S Sreesanth, VRV Singh, Irfan Pathan and Gautam Gambhir.