Seven promising young South African spin bowlers will attend a two-week course on spin bowling in Mohali, Punjab, next week.
The players will leave on June 3 for the sessions, to be conducted by Devendar Arora, Narendra Hirwani and Umesh Patwal. They will be accompanied by national selector and spinning coordinator Shafiek Abrahams and Yashin Ebrahim Hassan.
The seven spinners are Corbyn Dolley, Keshav Maharaj, Daryn Smit, Aubrey Swanepoel, Thandi Tshabalala, Roelof van der Merwe, and Jonathan Vandiar.
The trip is sponsored by Dubai-based businessman Shyam Bhatia, who was born in India.
Bhatia, who published a book on cricket titled Portraits of the Game, said cricket made him what was he is today and sport knows no boundaries, religion or colour.
"I have cricket to thank for so much of my success. It has opened so many doors for me and this is a way of saying thank you to the game," he told reporters in Johannesburg.
"It is a privilege to be involved. I am so pleased to be able to help and India is the perfect place for young spinners to learn their trade."
Bhatia has also donated US $10,000 each to the cricket boards of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, South Africa and the West Indies [Images] for cricket coaching of under-privileged children.
Gerald Majola, CEO of Cricket SA, expressed gratitude to Bhatia, saying "the wonderful sponsorship could help develop a string of exciting young spinners and a spinning culture".
All-rounder Yusuf Pathan and young left-arm spinner Pragyan Ojha were on Friday rewarded for their good showing in the Indian Premier League [Images] as the selectors announced a young 15-member squad for the forthcoming tri-series in Bangladesh and the Asia Cup in Pakistan.
Apart from the two new faces, the selection panel, headed by Dilip Vengsarkar, recalled seamer R P Singh, who replaces Munaf Patel [Images], a member of the squad that won the tri-series in Australia earlier this year.
Besides Patel, the selectors dropped Manoj Tiwary and Dinesh Karthik [Images] and ignored former captains Sourav Ganguly [Images] and Rahul Dravid [Images] again.
Sachin Tendulkar [Images] made himself unavailable for the two assignments as he has not recovered fully from a prolonged groin injury.
Off-spinner Harbhajan Singh [Images], the other senior member of the side, also missed out on a berth as he has been banned for five one-dayers after being found guilty of slapping national teammate S Sreesanth [Images] during an IPL match last month.
Squad: M S Dhoni [Images] (captain), Yuvraj Singh [Images] (vice-captain), Virender Sehwag [Images], Gautam Gambhir [Images], Rohit Sharma, Irfan Pathan [Images], Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, S Sreesanth, Yusuf Pathan, Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, RP Singh, Piyush Chawla [Images], Pragyan Ojha
amit and piyush chawla a deadly combination. Amit mishra has proved himself to be a very good googly bowler alognwith chawla. he needs to be looked at.
RE:Change the selector
by All Right on May 30, 2008 06:31 PM
Sir Chidambaram is not agreeing... Can I offer you Agriculture Ministry instead? Her Highness Madame Sonia Gandhiji has given her permission..
I thought Abhishek Nayar, Kulkarni and Agarkar would be in the Indian Team since Vengsarkar and Pawar will be supporting the Mumbai lobby. But where are they?
