Time to look ahead

As expected, the mopping up was quick at Motera and Attappattu mumbled the usual comments of ‘taking the positives from the tour'. Ditto from Shewag, although more in an off the cuff tone. Well !! To me, the so called ‘I am not overtly concerned’ comment eminating time and again from the Indian dressing room, about the gross failure of opening batsmen and the whole top order (100 for 5 in both inning at Motera!!) is understating an all important issue. Good bowling teams like Pakistan will not allow such ‘escapes from Jail’ and it is high time that Sehwag learns to combine aggression with responsibility. His ugly swat to 3^rd man in the 2^nd inning off the very 1^st ball is definitely disconcerting and there is going to be little or no chance of come backs in the tough tour of Pakistan. Not with the way Shoiab has been bowling.

Inzi has already called for hard, bouncy tracks, thereby giving away his strategies in the open. Although, this call is no surprise (given the recent success of Shoiab and co. against a lackluster England), Chappell has to start out-thinking his opponents here. I am not sure that theory on who can bowl fast is any good for consistently taking wickets (McGrath, the most successful fast bowler for a decade now is not exactly your tear away). Shoiab seems to have developed a new slower delivery that has caused nightmares to the poms. Indian batsmen struggled or atleast did not handle it well, when Dilhara bowled the slower ones during the ODI series. This is the time to do some video analysis, practice against the slower ball and take the bull by the horn (rather than worrying about whether you got into the already ultra rich BCCI contract as grade A or B or spending time in some New year bash).

India has to get its selection right as well and get the wicket taking Zaheer Khan back. Balaji and Nehra are still injured and are perhaps ruled out straight away. That leaves the selectors to pick RP or Zaheer or both. My choice is Zaheer since he will be now ready to make a come back forgetting his troubles of the past.