Chennai, Aug 6: Test specialist Rahul Dravid on Saturday earned a surprise recall to shore up India's struggling batting line-up while an off-colour Harbhajan Singh was dropped from the 16-member squad for the Twenty20 and one-day cricket series against England beginning August 31.
 The 38-year-old Dravid, the lone batsman who has been consistent with two back-to-back centuries in the ongoing Test series, makes his way into the one-day fold after a gap of almost two years to provide stability to a brittle line-up struggling in the seaming English conditions.
 Harbhajan, who has been ruled out of the Test series because of an abdominal strain and has been been woefully out of form in recent times, was expectedly not considered for the ODIs along with another star injured player Yuvraj Singh, nursing a broken left index finger.
 Karnataka paceman Vinay Kumar and wicketkeeper-batsman Parthiv Patel were recalled into the 16-member squad announced by the BCCI secretary N Srinivasan after a meeting of the selection committee.
 Paceman S Sreesanth, left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha and all-rounder Yusuf Pathan also failed to find favour with the five-man selection panel.
 Dravid's inclusion is indicative of the youngsters' poor performance so far on the tour where the likes of Suresh Raina have struggled against rising deliveries.
 With many of the frontline batsmen also struggling for runs, the selectors opted to rely on Dravid for lending stability to the middle-order.

Lastupdate on : Sat, 6 Aug 2011 21:30:00 Makkah time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 6 Aug 2011 18:30:00 GMT
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