Mahendra Singh Dhoni to lead India's ODI squad

Sept 18 - Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been appointed captain of India's one-day team for the home series against Australia and Pakistan. The selectors, who made that decision today, also picked the squad for the first three ODIs against Australia, bringing in Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan.

The decision on a Test captain, Dilip Vengsarkar, the chairman of selectors, said, would be taken at a later date. "We will see how Dhoni performs in these 12 ODIs before choosing the Test captain (against Pakistan)," he said.

Dhoni, who is the captain of India's Twenty20 squad, had been tipped to take over as captain since Rahul Dravid announced his resignation. "Dhoni is a good captain and has done well in the Twenty20 World Cup. It is the right time to groom him," Vengsarkar said.

The squad he will lead includes three former captains and several others who are senior to him but Vengsarkar said he didn't see it as a problem. "He would have three former captains in the ranks who would give him full support. You are talking about having three captains - Azharuddin had five former captains under him when he led India in England," Vengsarkar said.

There had been some speculation that Sachin Tendulkar would be made captain in both forms of the game but Vengsarkar sought to dismisss it. "We did not offer the captaincy to anyone, nor did we talk to him [Tendulkar] regarding the Test captaincy," he said.

The key points in the selection of the 15-man squad were the return of Harbhajan and Pathan, the continued absence of Virender Sehwag and the dropping of Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel and Rohit Sharma from the side that toured England.

Sehwag, Vengsarkar said, would get an opportunity in the series because the selectors planned to rotate the players.

On Munaf Patel's exclusion, he said, "Munaf stands a chance but he has to prove his fitness."

Vengsarkar also felt that both Pathan and Harbhajan had done enough to merit a comeback. "They have done well in the Twenty20 World Cup and they deserve it. We need an allrounder in the No 7 or 8 position and Irfan gives us more options. We will see his performance in the first few one-dayers."

Dhoni, who was the vice-captain of the ODI team on the tour to England, has had a meteoric rise since making his one-day debut in December 2004. He has scored 2477 runs in 84 ODIs at an average of 44.23 and a strike rate of 96.26. His highest score, an unbeaten 183 against Sri Lanka in 2006, is a record for a wicketkeeper and also the record for the most runs scored by a batsman while chasing. Dhoni had also occupied the top batsman's spot in the ICC one-day rankings in April 2006.

India one-day squad
Mahendra Singh Dhoni (capt) ,Yuvraj Singh (vice-captain), Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Irfan Pathan, Ramesh Powar, Piyush Chawla, RP Singh, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, Harbhajan Singh.