Sreesanth out, Ashwin bags World Cup berth

Chennai, January 17, 2011 (PTI):Young batsman Rohit Sharma and pacer S. Sreesanth were on Monday omitted from India's 15-member squad for the upcoming cricket World Cup to be held in the sub-continent from February 19.

Tamil Nadu spinner Ravichandran Ashwin and Piyush Chawla were named in the squad to be captained by Mahendra Singh Dhoni and which includes most of the star players like Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag.

The national selectors, who met for one and half hours to finalise the team here, picked three specialist spinners considering that the high-profile event will be held in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

Tendulkar, Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir and Praveen Kumar, who are nursing injuries and have been ruled out of the ongoing one-day series against South Africa, have been included in the squad announced by BCCI Secretary N Srinivasan.

Left arm spinner Pragyan Ojha and wicketkeeper batsman Parthiv Patel, who were among the front-runners to make the cut, failed to find a berth.

India's World Cup squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag (vice-captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel, R Ashwin, Piyush Chawla.

Photo : R. Ashwin has been named in India's 15-member cricket World Cup squad announced by the BCCI in Chennai on Monday