England named injured batsmen Kevin Pietersen in a preliminary 30-man squad on Friday for the Champions Trophy in South Africa in September. The 29-year-old right-hander was ruled out of the remainder of the Ashes series following an operation on his troublesome Achilles tendon injury on Wednesday, which is expected to take six weeks to heal. Also named in the squad, led by captain Andrew Strauss, were all-rounder Andrew Flintoff, who will retire from Test cricket after the final Test against Australia next month, and Durham seamer Steve Harmison. England said it would reduce the squad to 15 players by Aug. 23. The tournament, which involves 15 matches in 14 days, was originally scheduled to be held in Pakistan in 2008 but was moved to South Africa because of security concerns. Squad: Andrew Strauss, James Anderson, Gareth Batty, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Tim Bresnan, Stuart Broad, Paul Collingwood, Alastair Cook, Steve Davies, Joe Denly, Andrew Flintoff, James Foster, Stephen Harmison, Ed Joyce, Rob Key, Michael Lumb, Sajid Mahmood, Dimitri Mascarenhas, Eoin Morgan, Graham Napier, Graham Onions, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior, Adil Rashid, Owais Shah, Ryan Sidebottom, Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott, Luke Wright. Australia-India ODI tour Australia will open its seven-match one-day tour of India in the northern Indian city of Jaipur on Oct. 25, the Indian cricket board (BCCI) said on Friday. The other matches will be played at Nagpur (Oct. 28), New Delhi (Oct. 31), Mohali (Nov. 2), Hyderabad (Nov. 5), Guwahati (Nov. 8) and Mumbai (Nov. 11), the BCCI said in a statement. All matches except the sixth ODI in Guwahati will be day-night games. NZ stars choose Tests over IPL New Zealand's top players have put the national team ahead of the financial lure of the Indian Premier League by committing to international duty in a scheduling clash between the two. Several top players had delayed signing new contracts with New Zealand Cricket, fearing a scheduling clash next year between New Zealand's series against Australia and the Indian Twenty20 league. Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, Kyle Mills, Jacob Oram, Jesse Ryder and Ross Taylor all re
