Dravid named among Champions Trophy probables

CHENNAI (Reuters) - India named Rahul Dravid in the preliminary squad for the Champions Trophy in South Africa in September, raising hopes of the senior batsman's return to the one-day format.

Former captain Dravid's last one-day international appearance came in October 2007 before selectors pitched for youth with an eye on the 2011 World Cup to be staged in the sub-continent.

However, the selection committee on Monday named Dravid to the probables along with Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag after a young Indian batting unit struggled against short pitched bowling at last month's Twenty20 World Cup in England.

Tendulkar, who does not play Twenty20 internationals, opted out of the recent one-day tour of the West Indies while Sehwag missed the Caribbean trip due to a shoulder injury that had ruled him out of the World Twenty20 event.

India, who exited at the Super Eights stage in the World Twenty20, won the four-match series in the West Indies 2-1 after the final game on Sunday was abandoned due to heavy rain.

The 30-man squad will be reduced to 15 before the tournament.

Squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Rohit Sharma, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Abhishek Nayar, Ishant Sharma, Zaheer Khan, Rudra Pratap Singh, Praveen Kumar, Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha, Ravindra Jadeja, Dinesh Karthik, Munaf Patel, Ravichandran Ashwin, Murali Vijay, Amit Mishra, Ajinkya Rahane, Dhawal Kulkarni, Subramaniam Badrinath, Ashish Nehra, Virat Kohli, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Wriddhiman Saha, Pankaj Singh.

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