Laxman left out of Indian World Cup squad

With the storm of the contracts crisis still hanging over the heads of the Indian cricketers, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has announced that the national selection committee has selected the Indian squad of 15 to travel to South Africa for the World Cup in February 2003.

The talking point was the omission of VVS Laxman, who was replaced by Dinesh Mongia. This comes in the wake of widespread speculation that Mongia would in fact pip Laxman at the post for a place, thanks to his sharper skills in the field. Mongia was not selected in the 16-member squad that is currently playing a seven-match one-day series in New Zealand.

Laxman has scored 1240 runs at an average of just 27.55 in the 50 one-dayers he has played so far, scoring just one century. His strike rate, a mere 67.02 runs per hundred balls, has also gone against him.

As expected, young stumper Parthiv Patel has been selected as wicket-keeping cover for Rahul Dravid, who is expected to don the gloves in a majority of the games to enable the team to field an extra bowler or batsman as required. Dravid had a disappointing game behind the stumps against New Zealand at Napier recently and the selectors would have taken this into consideration in naming Patel as a reserve stumper.

Veteran campaigners Anil Kumble and Javagal Srinath will also heave a sigh of relief when they find their names on the list of 15 for the World Cup.

However, none of these players has signed the Participating Nations Agreement (PNA) and cannot take part in the World Cup unless they do so within the stipulated time limit. If any player fails to sign the agreement, the selectors will be forced to name a replacement.

Squad: Sourav Ganguly (captain), Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Javagal Srinath, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Dinesh Mongia, Parthiv Patel, Sanjay Bangar, Ajit Agarkar, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif.