Mohanty, Raju among probables

In-form medium pacer Debasish Mohanty and veteran left-arm spinner Venkatapathy Raju are among 25 probables selected for the conditioning camp, to be held at Madras from February 6 to 11 and February 16 to 20, ahead of the home series against Australia.

Board of Control for Cricket in India secretary Jaywant Lele, after naming the probables and three one-day teams for the Hero Honda-N K P Salve Challenger trophy, informed reporters in Bombay that the Indian 'A' team, which will play a three-day match against the visiting Australians from February 17 to 19, either at Hyderabad or Nagpur, will be selected on the second day of the camp.

"The Indian team for the first Test match will be selected during the three-day match," he added.

Coach John Wright of New Zealand, selection committee chairman Chandu Borde and skipper Sourav Ganguly also attended the meeting.

Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar will lead India Seniors, India 'A' and India 'B' teams respectively for the Challenger Trophy.

The probables:
Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, S Ramesh, Shiv Sunder Das, V V S Laxman, Dinesh Mongia, Hemang Badani, Javagal Srinath, ZaheerKhan, Ajit Agarkar, Debasish Mohanty, Ashish Nehra, Venkatesh Prasad, Surinder Singh, Nayan Mongia, Vijay Dahiya, Rahul Sanghvi, Murali Kartik, Balaji Rao, Sarandeep Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Venkatapathi Raju, Sunil Joshi and Mohammed Kaif.

The Challenger Trophy will be played from February 12 to 14, at Madras.

Following are the teams for the tournament:

India seniors: Sourav Ganguly (capt), S S Das, Yuvraj Singh, Hemang Badani, V V S Laxman, Virendra Sewag, Vijay Dahiya (WK), Asish Kapoor, Debasish Mohanty, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Sunil Joshi.

India A: Rahul Dravid (capt), S Ramesh, S Sriram, Jacob Martin, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Nayan Mongia (WK), Venkatesh Prasad, Ajit Agarkar, Iqbal Siddique, Rahul Sanghvi and Balaji Rao.

India B: Sachin Tendulkar (capt), J P Yadav, Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Mongia, Robin Singh, Amay Kurasiya, Sukwinder Singh, Nikhil Chopra, Rakesh Patel, Surinder Singh, Doda Ganesh and Vikram Rathore (WK).

The tournament schedule:

Feb 12: India seniors vs India A
Feb 13: India seniors vs India B
Feb 14: India A vs India B
Feb 15: Final.

Earlier interviews:

Debasish Mohanty: 'My ambition was to play a Test in Australia against Australia'

Venkatpathy Raju: `They thought I lacked seriousness'

Mail Cricket Editor