MUMBAI, 21 March 2008 — The dust is slowly settling down again after all the hoopla that attended the triumphant conclusion of the Australian tour. The haze of uncertainty, however, has not quite vanished, as India prepare to take on South Africa in a Test series at home.
The national selectors, who showed rare zest for pumping in fresh blood while picking the team for the shorter version of the game, now appear to be going back to the familiar adherence to safety-first tactics. A total lack of imagination and complete disregard for new emerging talent, the selection committee named the most predictable and, by now, almost worn-out set of players for the first two Test matches.
While doing this, it even overlooked some injury problems. It was quite on the cards that the “fab four” of Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman would form the core of the Indian batting and so it was that the quartet was retained. All four may be slow movers in the field and between the wickets, but there can be no doubt on their reliability.
There were, however, other spots where strong contenders were making their claims in no uncertain manner. But most of them were ignored. The saddest case is that of Gautam Gambhir. The left-handed Delhi opener was an outstanding success in the Commonwealth Bank tri-series in Australia. Besides, he had a fabulous domestic season, scoring eight centuries during the season.
Gambhir ought to have been preferred to Wasim Jaffer, who had had a wretched tour Down Under. The lanky Mumbai opener had a poor average of just 8 from six Test innings, with the highest score of 16. Gambhir might well be asking himself as to what more should he be doing to regain his place in the Test side. Indian team’s physio-therapist John Gloster’s report naming Dhoni, Harbhajan, Yuvraj and Ishant Sharma as unfit, too was ignored. While Ishant has been asked to rest for a couple of matches, the other three have been included in the squad with a strange stipulation that they have to pass a fitness test a few days before the first Test, starting at Chennai on March 26. By now, we all know what big farce these last-minute fitness tests can be. Yuvraj Singh is probably the only cricketer in the world to take the field with steels braces around his left knee.
