Tamil Nadu off-spinner Ashwin and Bengal medium-pacer Dinda come in for the rested experienced duo of Harbhajan Singh and Zaheer Khan respectively for the Twenty20 games in Nagpur (Dec 9) and Mohali (Dec 12), while Sreesanth replaces Ishant Sharma in the squad for the first one-day international in Rajkot on December 15.
Leggie Amit Mishra makes way for left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha, while there is no place for Munaf Patel in three changes from the squad named for India’s last 50-over engagement, the wash-out against Australia at the DY Patil stadium here last month.
Sreesanth has been rewarded for his influential comeback to the Test team, while Ashwin and Dinda find favour after impressive performances in domestic cricket, emboldening the selectors to give Harbhajan and Zaheer, only recently back from injury, a mini-break.
The teams:
T20s: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Kaarthick, Yusuf Pathan, R Ashwin, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, S Sreesanth, Ashok Dinda, Sudeep Tyagi, Pragyan Ojha, Rohit Sharma.
First one-dayer: MS Dhoni (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, V Sehwag, G Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, S Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Sreesanth, P Ojha, Sudeep Tyagi, Virat Kohli.
