MUMBAI: Opener Gautam Gambhir was named in an 18-man squad announced on Wednesday but there was no place for fragile pace spearhead Zaheer Khan for their first five-Test tour of England in 55 years starting in July.

The selectors included Wriddhiman Saha as reserve wicket-keeper for skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Left-handed Gambhir returns to the Test arena for the first time since December 2012, having been ignored for the home series against Australia and the West Indies last year and the tour of New Zealand this January.

Gambhir, with 4,021 runs and nine centuries from 54 Tests, is one of the three openers in the squad alongside Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay.

Gautam Gambhir

Zaheer, India’s most experienced new ball bowler with 311 wickets in 92 Tests, was not considered after missing a major part of the ongoing Indian Premier League due to a hamstring injury.

He broke down with a leg injury on the opening day of the Test series in England in 2011, in which Dhoni’s men suffered a 4-0 whitewash.

The squad includes three players, seamers Pankaj Singh and Ishwar Pandey and all-rounder Stuart Binny, who have no Test match experience.

India last played five Tests on an England tour in 1959 which the hosts swept 5-0.

They have not played a five-Test series since losing 1-0 in the Caribbean in 1997.

The 32-year-old Gambhir is one of only three in the squad to have played Test cricket in England before.

Dhoni and pace bowler Ishant Sharma are the other two with Test experience in England.

India play two warm-up three-day games in England before the five-match Test series.

The Tests will be played at Trent Bridge (July 9-13), Lord’s (July 17-20), Rose Bowl (July 27-31), Old Trafford (Aug 7-11) and The Oval (Aug 15-19).

India will also play five one-dayers and a one-off Twenty20 game during the tour, the team for which will be announced later.

India also named a 15-member squad led by Suresh Raina for a short three-match one-day series in Bangladesh from June 15-17.

Raina, who had failed to make the cut for India’s last one-day assignment — the Asia Cup in Bangladesh — was named captain amid speculation that either Rohit Sharma or Ravichandran Ashwin would be asked to lead the second-string side.

But as it turned out, Sharma and Ashwin were also rested for the series along with Dhoni, Virat Kohli, Dhawan, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammad Shami and Bhuvneshwar Kumar.

Varun Aaron, Stuart Binny, Amit Mishra, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane and Ambati Rayudu are the only players to be retained from the squad that took part in the Asia Cup in Bangladesh in February-March.

The three one-dayers will be played in Dhaka on June 15, 17 and 19.

The short tour, agreed in February as part of a bilateral deal between the two countries, has been squeezed in between the end of India’s domestic season on June 1 and the start of the England tour on June 26.

Squads:

England Test series: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Gautam Gambhir, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Ishwar Pandey, Ishant Sharma, Stuart Binny, Varun Aaron, Pankaj Singh.

Bangladesh ODI series: Suresh Raina (captain), Robin Uthappa, Ajinkya Rahane, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ambati Rayudu, Manoj Tiwary, Kedar Jadhav, Wriddhiman Saha, Amit Mishra, Parvez Rasool, Akshar Patel, Vinay Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Stuart Binny, Mohit Sharma.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2014