Tendulkar

MUMBAI (Reuters):

SACHIN TENDULKAR said yesterday he did not want to take on the job of India's Test captain again at present.

"Tendulkar has conveyed to Sharad Pawar (board president) that he was not in a position to accept the captaincy of the Indian team for the Tests," the Board of Cricket Control in India (BCCI) secretary Niranjan Shah said in a statement.

Indian selectors are due to name Rahul Dravid's successor as Test captain tomorrow.

Batting great Tendulkar, 34, and one-day captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni were in the frame for the job after Dravid relin-quished the post two months ago, saying he wanted to focus on his batting.

Appoint a younger person

"He (Tendulkar) was of the view that presently the Indian team was doing extremely well and the board must think of appointing a younger person as the captain looking at the future of the team," the statement added.

Tendulkar has led India twice before without much success.

"I don't feel right about it at the moment," Tendulkar was quoted as saying by the CNN-IBN news channel.

Selectors, who postponed a decision on the captaincy last month, must now decide whether to hand the Test reins to Dhoni, 26, who led a young team to success at the Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa.

Keeper-batsman Dhoni's leader-ship abilities were lauded during the home series against Australia which the visitors won 4-2 but he has played in just 20 Tests since his debut in December 2005.