MUMBAI, 4 October — Debate, they say, serves the useful purpose of knowing every shade of opinion. These days, nothing ever moves in Indian cricket without a debate, or without decisions that are debatable. When the Indian team was in Sri Lanka for the ICC Champions Trophy, the eternal debate was once again renewed whether Sachin Tendulkar ought not to have been reinstated as an opener.
The Master Blaster himself fanned this debate by speaking out that he always wanted to open, but was not being allowed to do so, in the best interests of the team.
The most knowledgeable have always felt that it was a wrong move, in the first place, to have shifted Tendulkar from that slot in the name of stability in the middle.
With such a long list of specialist batsmen, going up to No. 7, what stability, or rather the lack of it, was being touted about? This unseemly debate was raised at the most inopportune time. It did upset skipper Ganguly and the team management. Instead of a likely showdown, a compromise was arrived at by pushing Dinesh Mongia into the slot vacated by Ganguly.
The experiment fell on its face, as Mongia proved unequal to the task. Tendulkar, however, managed to move to No 3 spots, if not the opening one. It is quite on the cards that the issue will come up again when India engages the West Indies in a series of seven one-dayers after the three Tests at home.
Every one, including Ganguly and Tendulkar, is, however, agreed that Virendra Sehwag should not be shifted from that prime position where he has established himself as one of the most exciting batsmen in the game. One can also see that Tendulkar is not the same dashing batsman at No. 4 that he was as an opener.
The question of the return of Tendulkar as an opener can only be solved if Ganguly himself agrees to bat at No. 3. It would be disastrous to shift Sehwag from the opening slot. Another debate that is developing is with regard to the inclusion of some of the younger players in the Test squad too. There is so much talent at the moment that the selectors should not be averse to some flexibility in the harder task of picking the Test squad.
By what particular yardstick are we judging the talent of the likes of Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif and deciding that they are good only for limited-overs cricket? The two have been able to raise the fielding standard of the team to a new high.
Can the two not be used in the longer version of the game as well. They have so far been given a short shrift in Test matches where they were hardly allowed to settle down. They certainly deserve another break in Test cricket, for their sake and for the sake of the team... The bowling of the side will continue to be the main worry of the Indian team.
Mercifully, this weakness may not be fully exposed, as we are playing on friendlier home wickets. Even then, the current form of Anil Kumble and Ajit Agarkar must be a source of big bother for the team. The lack of a genuine all-rounder makes the bowling look even weaker.
The abundant batting talent available, however, has not helped India to solve its problem of obtaining a stable pair of Test openers.
If VVS Laxman is to hold his place in the team, he must be asked to open the innings with Sehwag. This will provide for one more place in the middle order, for either Yuvraj or Kaif. The new set of Indian selectors indeed have their job cut out for them.
