Tour of Pakistan 2005-06        Captain:  Rahul Dravid

India's 54th Test tour

(January - February 2006)

Seventh Test-playing tour of Pakistan by India

    (previous tour 2003-04)

Sourav Ganguly was controversially selected

Helped by the absence of Shoaib Akhtar, the Indians won four of the five one-day internationals

Other Indian tours

Previous tour

Zimbabwe 2005-06

Next tour

West Indies 2005-06

Next Pakistan tour

None scheduled

Members of the Test tour party (16)

Opening batsmen: Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Waseem Jaffer.

Middle-order batsmen: Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, V V S Laxman, Yuvraj Singh.

Wicket-keepers:Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Parthiv Patel.

Spinners: Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble

Fast bowlers:Rudra Pradeep Singh, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar.

Zonal representation

Duleep Trophy teams

C: Central (1), E: East (3), N: North (2), S: South (5), W: West (5)

 Ranji Trophy teams

Ba - Baroda (2)

Bn - Bengal (1)

Bh - Bihar/Jharkand (1)

D - Delhi (2)

Gj - Gujarat (1)

H - Hyderabad (1)

K - Karnataka (2)

Mb - Mumbai (3)

Pj - Punjab (2)

UP  - Uttar Pradesh (1)

Average age of  team at time of first Test match

(13 January 2005) :

 26 yrs  4 months

Test Appearances made before the tour

Tendulkar 126,  Kumble 100,  Dravid 94,  Ganguly 86,  Laxman 69,  Harbhajan  50,  Zaheer Khan 40,  Sehwag 39,  Agarkar 25,  Pathan 18,  Yuvraj Singh 10,  Dhoni 3,  R P Singh 0.

Tour Officials

Selectors

Kiran More (chairman),  Sanjay Jagdale,  V B Chandrasekhar,  Bhupinder Singh and  Ranjib Biswal, with skipper Rahul Dravid and coach Greg Chappell met in Mumbai.

Selection

Unavailable:   L. Balaji,   V R V Singh and  Ashish Nehra

Tour Party Announced:  Saturday 24 December 2005.

Not selected :  Mohammad Kaif. 

The selectors gave former captain Ganguly a `make or break' chance, choosing him at the expense of Kaif.

One day squad : Mohammad Kaif , Murali Kartik, Suresh Raina and Sreesanth were added to the group while Ganguly, Jaffer, Kumble, Laxman and Patel would not be required for the one-day series.

Time between selection and departure from India

  12 days

 (24 December - 5 January)

Travel

Delhi  Q   Lahore

After a three-hour delay, the team left from Delhi on Thursday evening 5 January 2006.

The Indians arrived in Lahore at 10.10 pm to a warm reception at the Alama Iqbal Airport.  Virender Sehwag, Anil Kumble, Sourav Ganguly and Parthiv Patel, playing in a Ranji Trophy match to improve their fitness, arrived on 8 January.

Time spent in Pakistan

   46 days

(5 January - 20 February)

On-tour selection committee

Captain Rahul Dravid, coach Greg Chappell, one of the selectors Bhupinder Singh, and team manager Raj Singh Dungarpur who would act as chair.

Reinforcements

Off-spinner Ramesh Powar (Mb) was added to the one-day squad on 7 February as cover for Harbhajan Singh (finger injury). A few days later the decision was taken that Harbhajan and Virender Sehwag (shoulder muscle strain) should both return home early.

Fixtures/Results

† not first-class

§  one-day international

(1) Bagh-e-Jinnah 

(2) Gaddafi Stadium

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Time spent in Pakistan before First Test:  8 days

    (5 - 13 January)

Test appearances on tour

3 -   Dhoni,  Dravid,  Kumble,  Laxman,  Pathan,  Sehwag,  Tendulkar,  Yuvraj

2 -   Ganguly,  Harbhajan Singh,  R.P.Singh,   Zaheer Khan

1 -   Agarkar

0 -.  Gambhir,  Jaffer,  Patel.

Match appearances

T  Test match

o  one-day international 

x other match 

∙  played for opposition

W won  L lost  D drawn  

N no result   A abandoned  

u unknown result

Highlights

•    At Lahore Sehwag recorded the second fastest double century (after Nathan Astle) in Tests requiring only 182 balls

•    Harbhajan Singh was hit for 27 in one over by Afridi (666621) at Lahore.

•    Sehwag (254) and Dravid (128*) added 410 for the first wicket at Lahore

•    Dravid scored another century (103) at Faisalabad while Dhoni scored his maiden Test hundred (148)

•    Irfan Pathan claimed a hat trick in the first over of the Karachi Test (Salman Butt, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf), reducing the home team to 0 for three wickets.

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Tour Summary

Return to India

Karachi  Q   Mumbai

Ganguly, Jaffer, Kumble, Laxman, Patel returned to India after 1 Feb 2006.

Harbhajan Singh (finger injury) and Virender Sehwag (shoulder muscle) returned home early on 13 February owing to injury.

After a delay of two hours in the flight from Karachi, seven members of the team (Dravid, Tendulkar, Agarkar, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Powar and Pathan) arrived at the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport, Mumbai, on Monday morning 20 Feb 2006. Dravid and coach Greg Chappell took their connecting flight to Bangalore

M.S.Dhoni,  Mohammed Kaif,  R. P. Singh,  Suresh Raina,  Gautam Gambhir and Murali Kartik landed at the Indira Gandhi Airport, New Delhi.

Time away from India

  46 days   (5 January to 20 February)

Finances

Accounts of the tour

Postscript