"The national selectors decided to retain the squad for the next three matches," announced Indian board secretary Karunakaran Nair.

India lead the seven-match series 2-0 after drubbing the visiting side by eight wickets here on Friday. They had won the first match in Nagpur on Tuesday by a whopping 152-run margin.

"The team is looking outstanding and their capability has shown in the results," said chief selector Kiran More. "Ganguly was available but not selected in the side."

Ganguly, who had suffered an elbow injury recently, was not considered for the first two matches but proved his fitness and form by scoring a century in the domestic Duleep Trophy tournament.

"He is a great player and is capable of getting back in the side but we thought it best to go with the winning combination," said More, a former India wicketkeeper.

"Mohammad Kaif was not considered because he has yet to recover fully from his hamstring injury," he added.

Ganguly, dogged by poor form, injury and a spat with coach Greg Chappell in recent months, was axed as India captain last week and replaced by Rahul Dravid for the Sri Lankan series and the subsequent five matches against South Africa in mid-November.

He is only the fourth batsman in one-day cricket to complete 10,000 runs after compatriot Sachin Tendulkar, Sri Lankan Sanath Jayasuriya and Pakistan's Inzamamul Haq.

He contributed just 48 in three home Tests against Pakistan early this year.

He scored a century against Zimbabwe in the opening Test at Bulawayo last month, but his painstaking six-hour knock against the weakest attack in international cricket did not satisfy critics.

Ganguly and Chappell were involved in a bitter row in September with the coach saying in a leaked e-mail to Indian cricket chiefs that the captain was unfit to lead the team.

Ganguly has scored 5,066 runs in 84 Tests with 12 centuries. He also has 10,123 one-day runs in 279 matches with 22 hundreds.

The next one-day match will be played in Jaipur on Monday.

SQUAD
Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Venugopal Rao, Suresh Raina, Gautam Gambhir, Mahendra Dhoni, Jai Prakash Yadav, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Sri Sreesanth, Rudra Pratap Singh, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik.