MUMBAI, Dec 24: India’s national selectors on Saturday recalled former skipper Saurav Ganguly and paceman Zaheer Khan to their Test squad for the upcoming tour of Pakistan.

The selectors decided to plump for experience in the 16-member squad to take on their arch rivals in a three-Test series beginning on Jan 14 in Lahore with Faisalabad and Karachi as the other venues.

Wicket-keeper Parthiv Patel too returned to the Rahul Dravid-led side as a back-up for Mahendra Dhoni while left-arm spinner Murali Kartik and middle-order batsman Mohammad Kaif were axed.

Ganguly, who was dropped for the final Test against Sri Lanka in Ahmedabad last week despite scores of 40 and 39 in the previous match at New Delhi, pipped Kaif for a place in the side.

Ganguly, a stylish left-hander who is India’s most successful Test captain with 21 wins, has scored 5,150 runs in 86 Tests.

“Saurav has a lot of runs behind him and since Pakistan is a tough tour, we thought we could make the middle-order strong by bringing him back in the side,” said chief selector Kiran More.

“He was always in the scheme of things and we had only been trying others against Sri Lanka, which is not a very strong Test team,” More said.

“Kaif has done well but his experience does not match with that of Saurav,” said More, a former India wicket-keeper.

Ganguly said he was hoping the team would do well in Pakistan.

“I am very happy to be back in the team like any other player would be in a similar situation. I am only hoping that we perform well in Pakistan,” said Ganguly.

More praised left-armer Zaheer, who was ignored for the Sri Lanka series and played his last Test in Zimbabwe in September.

“He has done very well in domestic cricket and his experience will be crucial in Pakistan,” More said about Zaheer, who has bagged 111 wickets in 40 Test appearances.

Zaheer is one of three left-armers in the squad along with Irfan Pathan and uncapped Rudra Pratap Singh with Ajit Agarkar completing the pace quartet.

The selectors decided to pick only two spinners in the experienced duo of Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh and decided instead to bring back gloveman Patel, who played the last of his 19 Tests against Australia last year.

“We decided that a second wicket-keeper was necessary because we didn’t want to wake up one morning and realise that our main man had an injury and we had no second wicket-keeper,” said More.

“Patel has been keeping well and also chipping in with the bat in recent domestic matches so we decided to pick him.”

India won a three-Test series in Pakistan 2-1 last year and also clinched a one-day series 3-2.

But on a tour of India this year, Pakistan drew a three-Test series 1-1 while rallying to beat India 4-2 in a six-match one-day series.

The Indian players are scheduled to leave on Jan 6 for the 46-day tour during which they will also play five one-day internationals after the Tests. The team for the one-dayers will be announced later.

Meanwhile, Indian cricket board secretary Niranjan Shah also announced the list of contracted players for the coming year with Ganguly figuring in grade A along with seven others.

The others in the top bracket are Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Vangipurappu Laxman, Pathan, Kumble and Harbhajan.

Yuvraj Singh, Kaif, Dhoni and Agarkar have been put in grade B while Zaheer, Kartik and Gautam Gambhir form grade C.

Test squad: Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag (vice-captain), Gautam Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, Sachin Tendulkar, Vangipurappu Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Saurav Ganguly, Mahendra Dhoni, Parthiv Patel, Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Ajit Agarkar, Rudra Pratap Singh, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh.

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