I hope, for the sake of Indian cricket, that the news that Tendulkar will open the bowling at Bombay is, like Mark Twain's remark on reports of his death, greatly exaggerated. I dont think the shock therapy needed is of this nature. The response to the series loss was quite ridiculous. Four players were culled.

Yuvraj's fault was that he got one chance as an opener and he failed. Chopra's was that his head should have been absolutely clear of any doubts of his ability and his being the preferred opener. Agarkar's fault was that he bowled reasonably well in one out of the two chances he got and instead of going down meekly in the second innings, he dared to get India past the 200 mark. Really Parthiv Patel was the only one who deserved the sack.

Who comes in? Shib Shankar Paul, Gautam Gambhir, Dheeraj Jadhav and Dinesh Karthik. Of these, Dinesh Karthik's selection was almost an obvious event when India lost and Parthiv continued with his shocking show behind the stumps. The unfortunate thing which happens with selections of the nature of SS Paul or Dheeraj Jadhav is that they get forgotten before the next series comes along simply because they dont get the chance [to succeed or fail]. Think Sanjay Bangar, think Amit Mishra who I thought bowled quite decently in Bangladesh and when Kumble and Harbhajan returned, seems forgotten altogether.

You have to question why Sridharan Sriram's performances for various teams against all opposition have been ignored. What about Sadagopan Ramesh? Two years ago, he and Das were touted as being India's best opening pair since Gavaskar and [insert any damn name here]. Now neither of them figure in the selection meetings.