August 08, 2007	Wednesday	Rajab 23, 1428

MUMBAI, Aug 7: Wicket-keeper Mahendra Singh Dhoni will lead a revamped India team missing five top stars at the inaugural Twenty20 World Championships in South Africa in September.

Regular captain Rahul Dravid and senior pros Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, V.V.S. Laxman and Zaheer Khan did not feature in the 15-man squad announced by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Tuesday.

Aggressive opener Virender Sehwag, off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and all-rounder Irfan Pathan make a comeback after being dropped for the ongoing tour of England.

Pathan will be joined in the squad by his elder brother, 24-year-old Yusuf, who is set to make his international debut as a hard-hitting batsman and off-spinner.

Dhoni, 26, who is India's one-day vice-captain, was the preferred choice to lead after Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Zaheer opted out of the tournament and Laxman was not considered.

India, reluctant to embrace a new format which has proved popular with audiences worldwide, have played just one Twenty20 international so far, against South Africa in Johannesburg last December.

The Indians won that game by a flattering six-wicket margin, chasing down South Africa's 126-9 with one delivery to spare.

Meanwhile, Dhoni was coming to terms on Tuesday in London with how, as a player from the relative cricketing backwater of Jharkhand, he'd been appointed India captain.

Dhoni, who only made his international debut in 2004 told reporters at The Oval, where the third and final Test against England starts on Thursday with India 1-0 up in three-match series: “It's a pleasure leading your country especially when you are just over three years old at international level.

“Coming from a state that's not very renowned for cricket, five years back nobody thought somebody would play for India from this state.

“So now if I look back, I'm very glad, I'm very happy, I'm excited,” the hard-hitting batsman added.

And he said his elevation would mean a lot for all those connected with cricket in the eastern state of Jharkhand.

“It is not very renowned for cricket and I am like a brand ambassador for them, coming from a small state where the infrastructure is not so great for cricket. But work is going on there to improve cricket.”

India’s Twenty20 squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag, Robin Uthappa, Yuvraj Singh, Gautam Gambhir, Rohit Sharma, Dinesh Karthik, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Piyush Chawla, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Rudra Pratap Singh, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Joginder Sharma.—AFP