Dravid to lead for Sri Lanka tri-series

Ace batsman Rahul Dravid will lead India in the tri-series in Sri Lanka later this month.

Sourav Ganguly was included as the 16th member of the squad and will travel to Sri Lanka only if his six-match ban is overturned by International Cricket Council arbitrator Justice Albie Sachs.

"The selection committee met on Monday under the chairmanship of Kiran More and first selected the captain for the Sri Lanka tri-series. Dravid will lead the team," BCCI secretary S K Nair said, announcing the team in Bangalore.

The team has two new faces in Uttar Pradesh youngster Suresh Raina and Andhra's Venugopal Rao. Railways all-rounder Jai Prakash Yadav also makes a comeback in the 15-member squad for the tri-series, starting July 30.

Sachin Tendulkar is still recuperating from the elbow surgery he had last month in London.

Sachs has set a July 20 date for the International Cricket Council and BCCI to present their submissions in the dispute over the process used in the appeal against Ganguly's ban. A final ruling on the ban is expected on July 22.

If cleared, Ganguly will play under Dravid's leadership.

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Raina, 18, was included in the squad on the basis of some consistent performances in the domestic circuit. He was the top scorer in the Deodhar Trophy with 310 runs and also amassed 482 runs for Uttar Pradesh in 2004-05 season.

Yadav comes into the team after a gap of nearly two-and-half years. The 30-year-old featured in two ODIs for India, in November 2002 against the West Indies. His short stint in international cricket was a disaster as he went wicketless and failed to score in the only innings that he got to bat.

Rao has been a consistent scorer in domestic cricket for the last few seasons. He was ninth in the list of top scorers in the Ranji Trophy last season, scoring 585 runs in six matches at 58.50. He also impressed the selectors and team management with a classy knock of 91 for Sehwag XI against Dravid XI in the David Johnson benefit match in Bangalore on Sunday.

The team is scheduled to leave for Colombo on July 23 from Chennai.

Sanjay Jagdale will be the manager of the team.

The team:

Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Suresh Raina, Venugopal Rao, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wicket-keeper), Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Laxmipathy Balaji, Ashish Nehra, JP Yadav.

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