Dhoni likely to lead a young team in Twenty20 WC

Mumbai, Aug 6 (UNI) With the 'Big three' of Indian cricket, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, deciding to give the next month's inaugural Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa a miss, the selectors are expected to choose a young and energetic team given the format of the nascent version of the game.

The selectors who meet here tomorrow to select the Twenty20 World Cup team will also have to choose a new skipper and the mantle in all probability will fall upon wicket-keeper batsman Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

The swashbuckling wicket-keeper batsman, who turned 26 on July 7, is set to lead a team that is likely to include seniors Yuvraj Singh, Ajit Agarkar and Zaheer Khan, apart from Test and ODI discards Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh and Mohd Kaif.

The Indian team would also see some new faces with the selectors deciding to plumb for the youth as the format demands young and energetic players for the September 11-28 tournament.

The selectors have already short-listed the 30 probables and will prune it down to 15 tomorrow.

The selectors will also select the squad for the seven-match ODI series against England tomorrow, and in all probability they will retain the same side which beat South Africa in the three-match off-shore ODI series in Ireland in June.

The ODI series against England commences on August 21 but prior to the rubber the squad is slated to play a one-off one-day tie against Scotland on August 16 at Glasgow at the conclusion of the ongoing Test series.

Selection panel chief Dilip Vengsarkar, who is in England, would have a telephonic conference with his co-selectors Sanjay Jagdale, Venkatapathy Raju, Bhupinder Singh Sr and Ranjib Biswal, when they sit for choosing the team.

Dravid, captain for the ODI series in England, is also expected to take part in the deliberations during the meeting to be convened by BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah.

The 30 probables from which Twenty20 World Cup squad would be chosen: Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Mohammad Kaif, Dinesh Kaarthick, Rohit Sharma, Gautam Gambhir, Yousuf Pathan, Suresh Raina, Manoj Tiwari, Neeraj Patel, Karan Goel, Cheteshwar Pujara, Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Rudra Pratap Singh, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, S Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Joginder Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Harbhajan Singh, Ramesh Powar, Rajesh Pawar, Niranjan Behera, S Anirudha and Praveen Kumar.

UNI