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New Delhi, September 19: THE preliminary list, with 47 names for the Delhi Ranji camp, was quietly pinned on to the notice board towards the evening at the Kotla. As expected, there were a few surprise candidates making it to the list following a two-hour long deliberation by the senior selection committee today.
As first reported by Sportline, Sarandeep Singh has conveyed his decision to switch loyalty to Himachal Pradesh this season and has been left out while wicketkeeper Vijay Dahiya has been called up for the camp, starting September 25 at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium. The newly-formed selection committee, comprising coach Chetan Chauhan, Nikhil Chopra, Vinay Lamba, Raj Kumar Sharma with Atul Wassan at the chair, has preferred to take a safety route by calling up a larger pool.
While the likes of Karan Harit, Navdeep Tomar, Amit Gupta, Salim Akhtar, Saurav Malik, Mohit Sharma have make the grade, a few other fringe players like wicketkeeper bat Abhishek Kaushik (656 runs in 16 matches with 3 centuries in DDCA super league and Hot Weather), left-arm spinner Manan Sharma (27 wickets in junior cricket and called up for Ranji camp at then coach Madan Lal’s request) and Pankaj Joshi (who is Delhi’s youngest debutant and was brought in after Virender Sehwag demanded him personally last season) are missing. Incidentally, Tomar’s inclusion last season cost the previous selection committee dearly as it kicked up a row and the committee was disbanded. They even have a medium pacer Dilraj Atwal, unheard in Delhi circles, in the list.
“We don’t want to let go any talent. We have been given a certain criteria by the sports committee and we respected that. There are a lot of names and we will watch them before arriving at a conclusion,” says Wassan. “We will have a five-day camp where each guy will be seen closely before finalising a list of 30 players. The real camp would start rolling from October 1,” he added. |