Another day and another win ! Why Uthappa?

It was another routine day at the office for the Indian team. The usual top order failure was there on a strip that resembled more of a beach cricket turf than real international cricket pitch. The ball hardly rose but even in such a wicket, Sehwag and Kaif failed (again). Yuvaraj was in fine touch even in the brief innings at Faridabad and continued on his good form. His partnership with Raina destroyed England but more than that, the English show lacked any will. There was no real quality in bowling and except Flintoff, the rest was routine stuff. Yuvaraj did not waste an easy opportunity like this and stroked his way to his 7^th ODI 100, through powerful strokes all around. Raina, played decently and got a half century but he could have gone for less but for the gift from Geriant Jones. Raina and Dhoni, in the later part of the inning ran a 2 when the ball was hardly 2 feet from the stumps and that said much about the will of Poms.

When England batted in the afternoon, they had too big a score to chase, considering the afternoon heat and the form of their batsmen. Colligwood showed some gumption but it was all too late.

Later in the day, More announced that Robin Uthappa is selected in place of Gambhir for the remaining ODIs and the Dubai ODIs too. I am no fan of Gambhir but they seemed to have decided to drop him even before the 3^rd ODI started since otherwise, why was he excluded from the XI? More talked about performance of Robin (IMHO – he has not set Cauvery on fire. I can’t remember any substantial innings, other than the one he played in the Challengers) but here is bad trend that only looks for youth and nothing else. If you go by performance alone, why is Kaif and Sehwag persisted with? Different yard sticks for different folks I guess. My selection would have been Vidyut Siva for opener slot and Hemang Badani for the middle order slot and I would have rested Sehwag and dropped Kaif once and for all.