Thinking about selecting the team for 1st Test against Australia starting Boxing Day makes me realise how difficult yet thankless the job of Indian Selector is. Dilip Vengsarkar certainly deserves a better deal for taking revolutionary decisions like inclusion of Ganguly in South Africa, asking Kumble to captain the test team, making Karthik as opener, giving new ball to R.P.Singh, sticking to the tried, tested and guaranteed middle order in spite of relentless pressure from Yuvraj Singh.
Let me start the selection with a few easy and uncontroversial ones. List is in Chronological order of walking into the batting crease
1. Jaffer - Best Opener for India over the last 2 years. Showed good form with a stroking 200 against Pakistan.
2. Rahul Dravid - He missed only 1 match since he has made his debut. Not in the best of form rather has just completed his worst (by his own high standards) year at office. Has got class and technique and is just a 100 away from striking form again. His selection into the team is beyond doubt but his batting position.
3. Tendulkar - Was he ever dropped ever since he has started playing? The decision whether to play him or not is left to himself. He on in part is raring to go.
4. Ganguly - Best Indian batsmen over last one year right from the first innings since he has come back. He is at his best form of his life.
5. Laxman - Remember, We are playing against Australia. We are not here to please Australians by dropping him.
6. Dhoni - Hasn't done any mistake with the gloves. Cheers up the dressing room. Batting and that too aggressively is a bonus. One who is touted to take over captaincy can learn the nuances by being a sincere deputy to Kumble.
7. Kumble. Full Stop
8. Zaheer Khan - India's strike bowler after Srinath's retirement. Worked extremely hard to earn a place back in the Team. Hasn't put a wrong foot since his return. Architect of India's triumph in England.
9. R.P. Singh - Good controlled bowler. Has his name registered at Lord's for his 5-wicket haul. Excellent new ball partner to Zaheer Khan. Both of them lack the pace to trouble Australian batsmen, but who else has? Swing and control is what is expected of them. It is important that they don't carry any injury during the entire series.
Pareto's 80-20 principle holds very well here. Selecting 80% of the 11 is only 20% of the effort but the remaining 20% will take 80% effort. I am yet to select Jaffer's opening partner and the 4th bowler.
Again starting off with an easier debate i.e. on 4th bowling option. My argument is that it has to be a spinner.
* The pitch at MCG is expected to be good for batting and will assist the spinners after 3 days. Stuart Clark has expressed his disappointment at this.
* Shane Warne last year picked up 5 wickets on day 1 against England to bring up his tally to 700. Suggesting that spin works at MVG.
* Australians are expected to bat big and long. A second spinner comes in handy then to share Kumble's workload.
* Only twice have Indian fast bowlers (Zaheer Khan and Agarkar) taken 5 wickets in an innings in at least last 20 tests against Australia. We don't have a 3rd fast bowler who looks like challenging that record. Australians were never troubled by Indian fast bowling but by Spinners.
* With Sreesanth unfit, Pathan looks the next best option. But being yet another left arm medium pace bowler, there wouldn't be any new variety to bowling attack. His batting would be useful isn't a valid argument when his bowling is useless. Ishant Sharma lacks any sort to discipline to play at Test Level, let alone against Australia. I was agitated at seeing him bowl at Bengaluru. I don't know Pankaj Singh, if he is quality bowler, I would have known.
I said we need a spinner, that doesn't mean that it has to be Harbhajan. He might have excellent record against Australia at home but that was few years back. Present Harbhajan is no longer the Turbonator, he is now a listless unidimensional off-spinner. Murali Karthik would have been good but only Harbhajan has flown to Australia and I am forced to select him.
Coming to the batsmen and Jaffer's opening partner. The possible options are Sehwag, Yuvraj and Karthik. Let me discuss of them one by one.
1) Sehwag - Till a year ago he was India's best batsmen along with Dravid for 3 years. He had one bad series in South Africa. Because of his poor one-day form he was dropped from Test Side. India had found a good opener in Karthik and never got a chance back. His style of game suits only Test Cricket. Attaching close in fielders, bowlers bowling to get his wicket rather than containing runs, new ball coming on to the bat etc suits well for him. His record over 5 years in various forms clearly suggests that. When he scores he scores them quickly, converts starts into huge scores. I wouldn't criticize the way he plays as the same method earned him huge successes in the past. Now he is low on confidence and form. So doesn't merit a selection. Selectors might hope/pray that he will come out well. But we can't expect such gambles to pay off against Australia.
2) Yuvraj Singh - He is one player who is causing head-aches to selectors, other settled middle order batsmen and me. Following arguments favour his selection. Is in form of his life; Likes ball to come on to the bat as it does in Australia; Strikes and Times the ball well; Brilliant fielder. Scores runs quickly and can be very good when counter-attacking; Provides a decent part time bowling option. But the big question is, where do one fit him? Only one opening slot is free. To select him we need to promote(?) Dravid to open and Laxman to No 3. Dravid hasn't been very successful as opener, still he as a team man has agreed to open. But I wouldn't open with him, because No 3 is his slot he has earned scoring about 7000 runs at that position. He is too good a batsmen to risk at opening slot. I wouldn't make such drastic changes in a long settled batting line up. So, if Yuvraj is to be selected he needs to open which he has never done successfully. That means he will have to sit-out and wait for his turn when any other batsmen gets injured. I would be very happy to have such a good batsmen sitting in the bench. Injury to a major batsman wouldn't be a problem then. This is a good problem to have for the team. Hussey got a break into Australian Team after age of 30 and 15000 first class runs.
3) Karthik - He had one bad series against Pakistan but otherwise he was top run scorer in England, had a good match in Cape Town, scored a hundred against Bangladesh. Dynamic fielder, back up wicket keeper and great team player. Has got India to a few solid starts with Jaffer. So I would give him a chance for 4 innings at least. That concludes the Team Selection.
Parthiv Patel and Aakash Chopra can also be considered. We have good number of options for batting but limited in bowling department. Is any pace foundation listening?
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