No Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Yusuf Or Karthik For Asia Cup

No Tendulkar, Yuvraj, Yusuf Or Karthik For Asia Cup

Sachin Tendulkar will not feature for India at the Asia Cup, which begins on 15th June

©REUTERS/Punit Paranjpe (INDIA) Picture Supplied by Action Images

Sachin Tendulkar has been allowed to miss the Asia Cup but the Indian board (BCCI) has left out Yuvraj Singh and dropped Yusuf Pathan and Dinesh Karthik for the four-team One-Day International tournament that gets underway in Sri Lanka on 15th June.

Batsman Tendulkar has not played an ODI since scoring a double-century against South Africa in Gwalior in February while Yuvraj, Karthik and Pathan have paid the penalty for poor performances in the last 18 months.

Yuvraj has scored one century and four half-centuries in 23 ODI appearances in that period, Pathan has failed to pass 50 in that time and taken just 14 wickets, and Karthik has scored two half-centuries in 20 games.

Following India's early exit from the tri-series in Zimbabwe, the BCCI have opted to offset the absence of Yuvraj and Tendulkar by the introduction of uncapped Mumbai Indians left-hander Saurabh Tiwary.

20-year-old Tiwary, who plays his main domestic cricket for Jharkand, has played just 19 one-day games with a highest score of 76 and an average of 42.16 although he has an impressive Twenty20 record of 748 runs at 31.16 and a strike rate of 133.09.

Pacer Ashok Dinda and off-spinner Ravi Ashwin, who both made their debuts in Zimbabwe, have been retained while Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra and Zaheer Khan all return having been rested for the tour of Zimbabwe.

The players on duty in Zimbabwe who miss out are opener Murali Vijay, leg-spinner Piyush Chawla, wicket-keeper Dinesh Karthik, injured pacer Ranganath Vinay Kumar, leg-spinner Amit Mishra, batsman Naman Ojha, Pathan, and fast bowlers Umesh Yadav and Pankaj Singh.

India will play Bangladesh on 16th June, Pakistan on 19th June and hosts Sri Lanka on 22nd June as they bid for a fifth Asia Cup title and a first since 1995.

The final is to be held on 24th June and all matches are taking place in Dambulla.

India Asia Cup squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ashok Dinda, Gautam Gambhir, Harbhajan Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Praveen Kumar, Virat Kohli, Ashish Nehra, Pragyan Ojha, Suresh Raina, Virender Sehwag, Rohit Sharma, Saurabh Tiwary, Zaheer Khan

© Cricket World 2010

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