Mumbai, Sept 18: BCCI on Tuesday announced that Mahendra Singh Dhoni will succeed Rahul Dravid as the captain in the forthcoming ODI home series against Australia beginning September 29. Team India meanwhile will get a separate skipper for Tests.Though reports suggest that Tendulakar will lead in the longer version, the decision is still kept in abeyance.
Dhoni, who is 26 years old and hails from Jharkhand, will lead only 3 ODIs against Australia to begin with. A decision to whether his term as skipper will be extended will be taken only after the Australia series.
Yuvraj Singh will be the Vice-Captain of the team. India are to take on Pakistan after meeting the Oz challenge.
The announcement came at CCI meet in Mumbai. The five selectors, with former captain Dilip Vengsarkar at the helm, took the decision among others.
Immediately after the decision, wishes started pouring in for the new captain Dhoni. The fifteen-member squad does not include Virender Sehwag, Munaf Patel, Ajit Agarkar and Rohit Sharma.
Speaking to reporters BCCI chief Sharad Pawar said, “We should give opportunity to young players…in the presence of old, experienced players, new generation should be prepared.”
There were media reports that the board had already taken a decision in this regard after Sachin refused to lead the ODI team.
Earlier the 34-year-old master batsman had admitted that ODIs were taking a toll on his body. Nevertheless, his experience might have made selectors consider his name for the captaincy.
Sachin also opted out of the ongoing Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa along with Dravid and Sourav Ganguly for the same reason. MS Dhoni is currently leading the squad at the Twenty20 World Cup and his captaincy and maturity have been widely praised in the match against Pakistan.
Rahul Dravid had made surprise announcement of his resignation on September 14.
The team that has been selected in the BCCI meet for home series against Australia is as follows:
M S Dhoni (Capt), Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Robin Uthappa, Piyush Chawla, Irfan Pathan, Dinesh Karthik, Zaheer Khan, R P Singh, Ramesh Powar, Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh.
Bureau Report
