The 31-year-old replaces Ramesh Powar in the only change to the side for the matches in Chandigarh on October 8 and in Vadodara on October 11, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Niranjan Shah said here on Friday.

Kartik last played for India in Peshawar against Pakistan in February 2006. A little after that, he left for Australia for surgery to his left shoulder, and has since been out of favour. His return suggests not just that the selectors are looking towards experience against the World champions, but also that the spinning cupboard wears a fairly bare look when it comes to promising talent, particularly with leggie Piyush Chawla out with an ankle injury. For Kartik, this is another in a long series of sporadic chances to prove his worth as a one-day cricketer. Having made his debut more than seven years back, the Railways left-arm spinner has played just 30 matches and taken 27 wickets. His recent form for Middlesex, for whom he played the entire County season, has been outstanding as he finished the highest wicket-taker for the London side in first-class cricket and was second only to Tim Murtagh in the wicket-taking stakes in domestic one-day matches.

Not too much ought to be read into Powar’s ouster. Given that a further seven matches remain to be played at home against Australia and then Pakistan , the stocky offie will most certainly be back at some stage.

There continues to be no place in the one-day side for Virender Sehwag, the opener from Delhi.

Meanwhile, Shah added that the selectors had also picked the team to play the one-off Twenty20 international against Australia at the Brabourne stadium on October 20. Predictably, they have retained the team that won the World Cup, minus Chawla who is expected to be out of action for at least three more weeks after injuring his right ankle.

Team for fourth and fifth one-dayers: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Robin Uthappa, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Kaarthick, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik, Zaheer Khan, Rudra Pratap Singh, S Sreesanth.

Team for Twenty 20 international: MS Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, G Gambhir, R Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, D Kaarthick, I Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, RP Singh, S Sreesanth, Ajit Agarkar, Yusuf Pathan, Joginder Sharma.