T20 World Cup: Vinay Kumar in; Ishant, Sreesanth dropped

Vinay Kumar, who has been in superb form in the ongoing Indian Premier League, was the only new face in the squad to be led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The BCCI senior selection panel under the chairmanship of Krishnamachari Srikkanth met here today to pick the squad.

Pacers Ishant Sharma, S Sreesanth and RP Singh, who were in the provisional 30-member list, failed to figure in the sqaud while spinners Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra also missed the bus.

Delhi batsman Virat Kohli, who was in the ODI squad against South Africa last month, was also left out, according to a BCCI release.The squad has four specialist batsmen in vice-captain Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and Gautam Gambhir, three all-rounders in Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, who had appealed against his Indian Premier League ban.

Besides Vinay Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar were the pacers in the squad while Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla will shoulder the spin bowling duties. Dhoni will have a back-up wicket-keeper in Dinesh Karthik.

Zaheer and Harbhajan were making a return after missing India's last Twenty20 International against Sri Lanka in December last.

Others who were dropped from the 30-member provisional list announced earlier for the April 30-May 16 mega-event were Sudeep Tyagi, Abhishek Nayar, Wriddhiman Saha, Naman Ojha, Abhimanyu Mithun, Manish Pandey, Munaf Patel, Murali Vijay and Ravichandran Ashwin.

The Squad:
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt), Virender Sehwag (v-c), Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, R Vinay Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Dinesh Karthik.