Bangar rewarded with place one-day squad

Kolkata, October 31: The hard-working Sanjay Bangar was on Thursday rewarded for his consistent performance in the Test matches with a berth in the 14-member Indian squad for the first three one-day internationals against West Indies.

Bangar, who has done well as a Test opener, averaging 48 in four innings in the ongoing series, was the only change from the 15-member team that played in the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka last month.

He replaces an injured Zaheer Khan who has been advised rest by doctors.

However, left-hand batsman Dinesh Mongia, who played in the Champions Trophy, has been dropped from the squad, announced by Cricket Board secretary S K Nair here.

Speedster Javagal Srinath, who was rushed to Colombo as the 15th member of the side before the final, also retained his place.

The first three of the seven-match series would be played at Jamshedpur (Nov 6), Nagpur (Nov 9), and Rajkot (Nov 12).

The squad for the remaining four matches will be announced in Rajkot after the third one-dayer, Nair said.

Zaheer Khan, who also missed the ongoing third Test here due to a knee injury sustained during the second Test in Chennai, was likely to sit out for the entire series.

"Most probably he will miss the series if he is not fit by the next selection committee meeting," Nair said.

All the five selectors - Brijesh Patel (chairman), Sanjay Jagdale, Kirti Azad, Kiran More and Pranab Roy - were present at the meeting which was also attended by captain Sourav Ganguly and coach John Wright.

Bangar has been rewarded for his consistent performance during the current series where he averaged a healthy 48 with scores of 55, 40, 20 and 77 till the first innings of the ongoing Eden Gardens Test.

Bangar, also a utility bowler, is expected to provide more depth to the middle order with the bat.

Srinath, who has 276 wickets in one-day internationls, had been ignored for the Champions Trophy initially after he announced his retirement from Test Cricket, but was flown in to Colombo as per skipper Sourav Ganguly's request before the final after Ashish Nehra was injured.

He shelved his retirement plans from Test Cricket before the series against West Indies and made it to the playing eleven in each of the three Tests.

Squad: Sourav Ganguly (capt), Virendra Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, V V S Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Ashish Nehra, Ajit Agarkar, J P Yadav and Sanjay Bangar.