Symonds left out of Australian squad for India

All-rounder Andrew Symonds has been dropped from the Australian squad for the upcoming series against India. Cricket Australia on Friday omitted his name from the 15-member Test squad for the four-Test tour to India.

Symonds, who first broke the headlines accusing Indian spinner Harbhajan Singh for racially abusive remark, recently came into controversy again – this time in Australian media and cricket – when he was left out from a three-match ODI series against Bangladesh for missing a team meeting and instead choosing to go for fishing.

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Australian National Selection Panel Chairman Andrew Hilditch said: "Andrew Symonds was stood down for disciplinary reasons in Darwin and is now going through a process managed by Cricket Australia designed to give him time to assess whether he is fully committed to all of the things needed for a cricketer to be a member of the world's number one team."

Symonds omission has further pushed the inclusion of Shane Watson to return to the side. He has had a good domestic season and also had a successful IPL T20 start off while playing for Rajasthan Royals.

The team has included two new spinners—leg-spinner Bryce McGain and off-spinner Jason Krejza. It will be certainly interesting to look at whether these two fill the gap of Shane Warne, Stuart MacGill and Brad Hogg.

Again fast bowlers like Brett Lee and Stuart Clark are yet to play their first Test match on Indian track though they have a good amount of experience of One-Day internationals.

Australian Squad: Ricky Ponting (c), Michael Clarke (vc), Doug Bollinger, Stuart Clark, Brad Haddin, Matthew Hayden, Michael Hussey, Phil Jaques, Mitchell Johnson, Simon Katich, Jason Krejza, Brett Lee, Bryce McGain, Peter Siddle, Shane Watson.

The first test is scheduled to be played in Bangalore on October 9. The next is on Oct 17 in Mohali followed by matches in Delhi on Oct 29 and Nagpur on Nov 5.