Vinay Kumar gets surprise call-up for T20 WC

Karnataka pacer Ranganath Vinay Kumar was on Friday rewarded for a consistent domestic performance with a place in India's 15-member squad for Twenty20 World Cup, in the West Indies, next month.

Kumar, who is displaying good form in the ongoing Indian Premier League, is the only new face in the squad, to be led by Mahendra Singh Dhoni.

Pacers Ishant Sharma, S Sreesanth and RP Singh, who were in the provisional 30-member list, failed to figure in the squad, which was picked by the Board of Control for Cricket in India's senior selection panel, under the chairmanship of Krishamachari Srikkanth, in Mumbai.

Spinners Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra, and Delhi batsman Virat Kohli, who was in the ODI squad that played South Africa last month, also missed the bus.

The squad has four specialist batsmen in vice-captain Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and Gautam Gambhir; three all-rounders in Yusuf Pathan, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja, who had appealed against his Indian Premier League ban.

Besides Vinay Kumar, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Praveen Kumar are the pacers in the squad, while Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla will shoulder the spin bowling duties.

Dhoni will have a back-up wicketkeeper in Dinesh Karthik.

Zaheer and Harbhajan are making a return after missing India's last Twenty20 International against Sri Lanka in December last.

Others who were dropped from the 30-member provisional list, announced earlier for the April 30-May 16 mega-event, were Sudeep Tyagi, Abhishek Nayar, Wriddhiman Saha, Naman Ojha, Abhimanyu Mithun, Manish Pandey, Munaf Patel, Murali Vijay and Ravichandran Ashwin.

Squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Harbhajan Singh, Ravindra Jadeja, Zaheer Khan, Praveen Kumar, Ashish Nehra, Vinay Kumar, Dinesh Karthik, Rohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla.