Khsitij Sharma dropped finally, Kalra on standby

New Delhi: The DDCA senior selection committee finally dropped controversial pick Khsitij Sharma from the 15 member Delhi squad for the knock out stage of Vijay Hazare Trophy.

However, U-19 World Cup hero Manjot Kalra has been kept on standby with young left-arm spinner Harsh Tyagi taking Khsitij’s place.

Khsitij, who had been included in the squad during Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament, has attracted a lot of negative attention as he was included bypassing proven performers.

There were strong allegations that he was included at the behest of a senior DDCA official, who wanted him to get an IPL contract.

Interestingly, Delhi played him one T20 game in which he failed and he landed a Rs 20 lakh contract with Chennai Super Kings.

The selectors then included him in the one day squad with the logic that he now has an IPL contract. Once he flopped in the Hazare Trophy, the selection committee led by Atul Wassan had no option but to exclude him from the final squad.

Squad: Ishant Sharma (captain), Gautam Gambhir, Unmukt Chand, Rishabh Pant, Nitish Rana, Hiten Dalal, Dhruv Shorey, Lalit Yadav, Kulwant Khejroliya, Pradeep Sangwan, Navdeep Saini, Pawan Negi, Harsh Tyagi, Himmat Singh, Milind Kumar. Stand by: Manjot Kalra.