Indian 30 probables for WC 2015 announced - How many of 1983 survived for 1987 WC

The  11th ICC Cricket World Cup is  scheduled to be jointly hosted by Australia and New Zealand from 14^th  February to 29^th  March 2015. 49 matches will be played in 14 venues with Australia staging 26 games at grounds in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney while New Zealand hosts 23 games in seven cities, including Auckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, Hamilton, Napier, Nelson and Wellington.  The final match of the tournament will take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

West Indies won the inaugural WC in 1975 – in 1983 Kapil Devils created history.  India are now the defending champions, having won the tournament in 2011 when it was held in the Indian Subcontinent, defeating Sri Lanka in the finals.

Today, India named  30-man squad:

Batsmen: Shikhar Dhawan, Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, Kedar Jadhav, Manoj Tiwary, Manish Pandey, M Vijay

Fast Bowlers : Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Dhawal Kulkarni, Stuart Binny, Mohit Sharma, Ashok Dinda

Spinners : R Ashwin, Parvez Rasool, Karn Sharma, Amit Mishra, Ravindra Jadeja, Akshar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav

Wicketkeepers : MS Dhoni, Robin Uthappa, Sanju Samson, Wriddhiman Saha

This pool would be pruned to 15 who would play for India in the World Cup.  Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, Gautam Gambhir and Harbhajan Singh have been omitted from the 30-member preliminary squad for the World Cup picked by India's selectors on Thursday. It has been almost a year since any of them made the ODI side.  Some may ask,  is 4 years such a long gap making heroes not part of the present team. Besides these five cricketers, the selectors have also overlooked most of India's World Cup-winning squad members. Dhoni, Kohli, Raina and Ashwin are the only survivors from the 2011 squad. Barring Sachin Tendulkar, who has retired, and Sreesanth, who has been banned for life for his alleged involvement in the IPL corruption scandal, all other members of the 2011 triumph were available for selection.

To the Q of 4 years gap – here is the 14 member squad that won the Prudential WC 1983 [remember Sunil Valson did not get to play a single match in that tournament and eventually never played for India !]

1) Kapil Dev Capt; 2) Krishnamachari Srikkanth 3) Sunil Gavaskar 4) Mohinder Amarnath 5) Dilip Vengsarkar 6) Yashpal Sharma 7) Sandip Patil 8) Kirti Azad 9) Syed Kirmani 10) Madanlal 11) Roger Binny 12) Balwinder Singh Sandhu 13) Ravi Shastri and 14) Sunil Valson.

In 1987 Reliance World Cup  too Kapil Dev was the captain.  The team was : 1) Kapil Dev 2) Sunil Gavaskar 3) Krishnamachari Srikkanth 4) Navjot Singh Sidhu 5) Dilip Vengsarkar 6) Mohd Azharuddin 7) Ravi Shastri 8) Kiran More 9) Roger Binny 10) Chandrakant Pandit 11) Manoj Prabhakar 12) Chetan Sharma 13) Maninder Singh and 14) Laxman Sivaramakrishnan.

As could be seen only Kapil, Gavaskar, Srikkanth, Vengsarkar, Shastri & Binny survived.

With regards – S. Sampathkumar.

4^th Dec 2014.

Photo credit : cricinfo.com