Indian Test specialists to leave Australia early

Thursday, December 1st, 2011 at 10:05 am , filed under News by Forrester Gavin

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India team preparation for the upcoming Australia tour down under of 4-match test series will begin with the team departing in two batches Australia tour.

The Test specialists of Indian team are scheduled to early for Australia, even before the present ODI team completes it’s five match series against West Indies. Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Ishant Sharma, Pragyan Ojha and Wriddhiman Saha are expected to leave in the first batch,but no word yet on Dhoni along with few members of supporting staff, which includes physio Evan Speechly and fitness trainer Ramji Srinivasan.

The exact date of when the Test specialists will be leaving to the Australia tour was not yet confirmed, they will leave either on December 8 or after the BCCI awards function on December 10. India’s first tour game begins on December 15, eleven days prior to the Boxing Day Test. This is not the first time that Team India specialist players are leaving early, in last year Test specialist left to South Africa, while the ODI side played against New Zealand at home.

India will be playing couple of practice matches in Canberra against Cricket Australia Chairman’s XI.The first match is from December 15-16 and the second from December 19-21.

The second batch of Indian team with players like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, R Ashwin, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron and Zaheer Khan along with coach Duncan Fletcher. However, Zaheer Khan will join the team, if only he retains full match-fitness. Zaheer Khan’s fitness will be tested in Mumbai’s next Ranji match from November 29 against Orissa. He had undergone ankle surgery in England in August.

VVS Laxman, one of India’s Tests-only players, welcomed the development. He stated that it is really luckily for them going ahead this time, so we will get a lot of time and opportunity to get acclimatised to those conditions. Laxamn firmly believes coming early will help the players to get used to the conditions. it’s always important to get to Australia and get used to the conditions

Earlier, the 17 member squad for Australia tour of down under has been named, where it was find some big names missing. Indian selectors have ignored some big names like Harbhajan Singh, who is having some bad days in his life and Yuvraj Singh was excluded as he was suffering with a non-malignant tumour in his left lung. The spin duo R Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha retained their spots, backing up their wonderful performances in recently finished Test series against. The pace twins Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav, who were impressive in the West Indies test series have also retained their places.

However, India team has an early set back in the form of Praveen Kumar. The medium pacer is expected to be the part of playing eleven against West Indies, but he seeked for rest for first three ODI’s. Later, it was announced that Praveen will miss entire ongoing West Indies one day series and also Aussie tour, due to elbow injury.

Indian Squad: M S Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Virat Kohli, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Rohit Sharma, Pragyan Ojha, Ajinkya Rahane, Wriddhiman Saha, Zaheer Khan.

Tags: India squad for Australia tour, India Test Specalists, Indian Test Specalists to leave Australia early, Sachin tendulkar, Zaheer Khan