Offspinner Harbhajan Singh will not be playing in Thursday's opening Test against the West Indies here due to a shoulder injury. "He has been ruled out of the Test as he is not 100 per cent fit. It's a long tour, so we don't want to take any risks," said Indian manager Gautam Dasgupta on Wednesday. Offspinner Harbhajan suffered the injury while throwing from the deep in a three-day fixture against the Guyana Board President's XI on Sunday.

Fellow spinner Sarandeep Singh has been named in a 13-member squad for the opening Test, Dasgupta said. Sarandeep bowled a bit in practice on the eve of the match, and was expected to play.

Wicketkeeper Ajay Ratra, paceman Tinu Yohannan and middle-order batsman Dinesh Mongia were all left out of the XIII.

West Indies, as widely predicted, are likely to look to pace, but captain Carl Hooper is aware that it is a risky strategy. "It's not easy to replace Walsh and Ambrose but we will be relying on Merv Dillon, Cameron Cuffy, Marlon Black and Adam Stanford to deliver the goods," he said.

Their batting is boosted by the return of Brian Lara after a three-month absence following a dislocated elbow sustained in Sri Lanka. But Hooper is confident that his batsmen are all in good form. "Stuart Williams almost picked himself by scoring 970-odd runs in the Busta competition," he said. "Junior Murray hit four hundreds at the first-class level. Ryan Hinds is a very effective bat. The guys are looking sharp."

West Indies Carl Hooper (capt), Chris Gayle, Stuart Williams, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Ryan Hinds, Junior Murray (wk), Mervyn Dillon, Cameron Cuffy, Marlon Black, Adam Stanford, Mahendra Nagamootoo

India Sourav Ganguly (capt), Shiv Sunder Das, Deep Dasgupta (wk), Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Venkatsai Laxman, Sanjay Bangar, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath, Sarandeep Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Wasim Jaffer.

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