Rahul Sharma in - Harbhajan dropped - ODI squad announced

Have you heard of Bell’s Palsy

-         it is a form of  facial paralysis resulting from a dysfunction of the facial nerve  that results in the inability to control facial muscles on the affected side. Several conditions can cause facial paralysis and when  no specific cause can be identified, the condition is known as Bell's palsy. Named after Scottish anatomist Charles Bell, who first described it, Bell's palsy is the most common acute mononeuropathy (disease involving only one nerve) and is the most common cause of acute facial nerve paralysis.  It is thought that an inflammatory condition leads to swelling of the facial nerve. The nerve travels through the skull in a narrow bone canal beneath the ear. Nerve swelling and compression in the narrow bone canal are thought to lead to nerve inhibition, damage or death. No readily identifiable cause for Bell's palsy has been found.

This young boy is from Jallandhar,  he is tall 6’4” – was once afflicted by this disease but in the last IPL season was on a roll.  In fact, playing for Pune Warriors against Mumbai Indians at DY Patil Stadium, he had a dream spell of  4-0-7-2 and won the Man of the match changing the trend of batsman friendly format of T20.

Rahul Sharma was the standout spinner in IPL 2011 with 16 wickets at a superb economy-rate of 5.46. and it augurs well for Indian Cricket that he has been picked up in the ODI squad to play England at home, next month. 

Harbhajan has been dropped; there will be no Sachin, Sehwag, Zaheer, Yuvraj, … but the squad looks young and fit.  The squad announced today is :

Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Parthiv Patel, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina , Ravindra Jadeja, R Ashwin, Varun Aaron, Umesh Yadav, R Vinay Kumar, Sreenath Aravind, Rahul Sharma, Manoj Tiwary, Praveen Kumar.

Good mix of Pacers : Praveen, Aaron, Yadav, Vinay and Arvind; Spinners – Ashwin, Rahul and Jadeja (!); Openers – Gambhir, Rahane & Parthiv.  Middle order : Kohli, Raina, Jadeja, Manoj Tiwary & Dhoni.

Will this team reverse the fortunes against England in the 5 one dayers remains to be seen.  The matches are scheduled to be :

Oct 14 – Hyderabad

Oct 17 – Delhi

Oct 20 – Mohali

Oct 23 – Mumbai

Oct 25 – Kolkata

On Oct 29, India will play a solitary T20 against England at Kolkatta.

Best wishes to the team, especially to Rahul Sharma

Regards – S. Sampathkumar.