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Tendulkar out of Challenger series

THE TEAMS INDIA: Ajay Jadeja (capt), Saurav Ganguly, Gagan Khoda, Vinod Kambli, Rahul Dravid, Saba Karim (wk), Rajesh Chauhan, Nilesh Kulkarni, Robin Singh, Debashish Mohanty, Arvinder Singh and Nikhil Chopra. INDIA 'A': M Azharuddin (capt), Hrishikesh Kanitkar,V V S Laxman, S Sharath, Noel David, Rahul Singhvi, Nayan Mongia (wk), Wasim Jaffer, Nikhil Haldipur, Sairaj Bahutule, Ajit Agarkar and Dodda Ganesh. INDIA 'B': Anil Kumble (capt), M S K Prasad (wk), Jatinder Singh, Jatin Paranjpe, Pankaj Dharmani, Sunil Joshi, Amey Khurasia, Rohan Gavaskar, Sanjay Rahul, Robin Singh (jr), Ananth Padmanabhan and Sukhbir Singh.

Sachin Tendulkar has been excused from playing the day-night Challenger one-day series for personal reasons, Board of Control for Cricket in India acting secretary J Y Lele said here on Friday.

Tendulkar has made only one 50 in the last 11 one-day internationals. But chairman of the selection committee Ramakant Desai said no selector put any pressure on Tendulkar to play. In his absence, the Indian eleven will be led by Ajay Jadeja, who at the moment is Tendulkar's deputy.

The selectors while choosing the three teams for the series to be played under floodlights from October 9 to 12 have given the reins of other two teams, India 'A' and India 'B' to deposed Indian skipper Mohammed Azharuddin (India 'A') and ousted vice-captain Anil Kumble (India 'B').

The India team has only one outsider -- off spinner Nikhil Chopra -- and he may play despite Rajesh Chauhan's presence since the teams have just 12 players instead of the usual 14.