India drop Ganguly from Test squad

NEW DELHI—Indian selectors on Wednesday dropped former captain Sourav Ganguly from the squad for the third and final Test against Sri Lanka to be played in Ahmedabad from Sunday. Ganguly, who has not been part of recent one-day teams, was replaced by Mumbai opener Wasim Jaffer in the Test team.
“We have been wanting to give other middle-order batsmen like Yuvraj Singh and Mohammad Kaif more chances so we decided not to pick Ganguly,” said chief selector Kiran More, a former India wicket-keeper. Jaffer played seven Tests for India from 2000 to 2002 with limited success but has shown good form in recent domestic matches.
Ganguly made 40 and 39 in the second Test here but has stiff competition from Singh, who scored an impressive 77 not out in the second innings here, and Kaif who could not make it to the playing eleven. India were without opener Virender Sehwag because of a throat infection, with Rahul Dravid and Irfan Pathan opening the batting once each here and making things easier for the team management to push in an extra middle-order batsman.
India won the Test here on Wednesday to go 1-0 up in the three-match series after the first Test ended in a draw in Chennai. Dravid was retained at the helm for India’s upcoming tour of Pakistan in January and England’s tour of India starting in March.
The squad: Rahul Dravid (Capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, Sachin Tendulkar, Venkatsai Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, Irfan Pathan, Mahendra Dhoni, Ajit Agarkar, Rudra Pratap Singh, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik.