MUMBAI, Nov 27: Unfazed by the humiliating defeat in the second cricket Test against England, the Indian selectors on Tuesday persisted with the same squad giving under-fire star players another chance to prove their worth in the third match starting at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Dec 5.

The selectors refrained from making major changes to the team barring the inclusion of paceman Ashok Dinda for an injured Umesh Yadav. Dinda had been called as a cover for Ishant Sharma in the first Test and Yadav in the second Test though he did not get to play.

The selection panel was to announce the team for the remaining two Tests of the four-match series but did so only for the Kolkata match in a clear perform-or-perish message for some of the under-performing players. “The teams for the fourth Test and the two Twenty20 Internationals will be picked later,” BCCI secretary Sanjay Jagdale said.

India lost the Mumbai Test by 10 wickets inside four days and there was intense speculation a leg-spinner would be drafted into the squad to bring more variety in the spin department.

But the selectors reposed faith in the spin trio of Ravichandran Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha and Harbhajan Singh despite their failure to exploit the pitch in Mumbai which was tailor-made to suit India’s demands.

Also retained was Sachin Tendulkar, who has been going through a prolonged form slump, his last 10 innings yielding just 153 runs at an average of 15.30, the lowest by an Indian top-order batsman in the corresponding period. In the current series he has scored merely 13, 8 and 8.

Opener Gautam Gambhir, who has also been out of form, did well in the second innings of the Mumbai match to hang on to his spot in the side.

Squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ashok Dinda, Pragyan Ojha, Ajinkya Rahane, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Murali Vijay, Zaheer Khan.—Agencies