Virender Sehwag axed, Harbhajan Singh retained for remaining Australia Tests

New Delhi: Virender Sehwag has been dropped from India's Test squad for the remaining two matches against Australia in Mohali and New Delhi. The BCCI selectors met on Thursday and announced a 14-man squad for the remaining two fixtures of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, which India lead 2-0, with Sehwag the only casualty.

The news was not unexpected. Sehwag has managed just 27 runs in three innings against Australia to extend a poor run of form. In 21 Test innings since the tour of Australia, he has managed one century and two fifties. Since scoring a long overdue century against England in Ahmedabad in November, his scores read: 25, 30, 9, 23, 49, 0, 19, 2 and 6. In the last five years, the best he has come up with outside of Asia is 67, and he averages a paltry 22.73 away from friendly conditions.

With no replacement named for Sehwag, the likely candidate to partner Murali Vijay is the uncapped Delhi batsman Shikhar Dhawan. Ajinkya Rahane, a top-order batsman in domestic cricket, is also in the squad and could come into the frame for the Mohali Test starting March 14. The final Test is in Delhi on March 22.

A file photo of Virender Sehwag and Harbhajan Singh celebrating a wicket.

India Test squad: MS Dhoni, Murali Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, R Ashwin, Pragyan Ojha, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ajinkya Rahane, Ashok Dinda, Shikhar Dhawan, Ishant Sharma

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