The selection of the Indian team for the forthcoming ODI series against England has been a much talked about subject in Indian cricket circles for the last three days. With the selectors dropping Harbhajan Singh for the first time in five years and looking beyond Ashish Nehra, despite him being fully fit, tells you that the selectors are determined to accept short-term reversals with a view to prepare a team for the future.
While you feel for Nehra, who is only 32 and has done well for India between 2009 and 2011, his propensity to get injured with alarming regularity has finally come to haunt him. The selectors, it must be admitted, haven?t gone overboard either. By handing Singh the captaincy of the India Green side for the challengers due to be played from October 10 to October 13, they have sent a strong message to the sardar from Jalandhar. Perform at the domestic level and make your way back to the side. Champions League performances aren?t going to count and this is the best selection decision possible in the current scenario. The Champions League is a waste of time and the selectors, even if inadvertently, have recognised this truth.
Singh, make no mistake, has four to five years of cricket left in him and is expected to play a major part in India?s Test and ODI campaigns in the next two to three years. At the same time it was important to give him a reality check and demonstrate that his indispensability quotient is no longer at a premium. He needs to come to terms with the fact that he is India?s premier bowler and this is his time to do so. This break should enable him to go back to the basics, play domestic cricket for Punjab and come back a better and stronger player. India needs Singh, the match winner, in Australia at the end of the year and the sooner he is back at his best, the better it is for the country. With healthy competition coming his way from Ashwin and now Rahul Sharma and Pragyan Ojha, it is expected that Bhajji will do his best to silence his critics in the coming months.
Despite the absence of seven key players due to injury, there is hardly any concern about India?s limited overs batting at home. In fact, the batting order almost chooses itself for the first two one dayers. With Gambhir back in business it will be the right left combination of Parthiv Patel and Rahane to open, with Gambhir batting at number three, a slot he made his own during India?s victorious World Cup campaign. At numbers four to six India will field Kohli, Raina and Dhoni, all of them champions of the limited overs format, with the last two capable of turning it on at any stage of the innings. Raina, it must be acknowledged, is one of the best players in the world in the shorter format of the game and unlike in the Test matches, his body language in ODIs radiates a sense of confidence and bravado. His big hitting ability should stand India in good stead under the new ICC rules, wherein the batting powerplay has to be finished before the 40th over of the innings.
With Ravindra Jadeja coming good in England, the lower middle order looks good with him and Ashwin batting at seven and eight, respectively. Praveen Kumar, Varun Aaron and Srinath Aravind are expected to complete the line up in the first two ODIs. Aravind, the rookie left armer from Karnataka, can be India?s equivalent of Jade Dernbach. He uses the slower ball to good effect and has very good variation to go with. Having done reasonably well for Karnataka, Aravind can be a player to watch out for in the future. He is expected to be picked ahead of Vinay Kumar who hasn?t done much to justify the selectors? faith and has probably been given one final opportunity to redeem himself.
That India can field a competitive side with seven of its best players out with injury suggests that India?s bench strength in the limited-overs format is reasonable and is something we should take heart from. A win against England will only cement the belief that we are deserving winners of the World Cup and are a side that will continue to be a force to reckon with in the future.
The writer is a sports historian