Breaking/Brief news
October 01, 2008
A very predictable Indian squad for first test against Australia
With no intention of rocking the boat, for e.g. by agreeing with Ricky Ponting's claim that Ganguly was going to be left out, the new bunch of selectors have included Amit Mishra and S Badrinath in the 15-man squad for the first two tests against Australia.
It was always on the cards that Ganguly would be included. I never understood the fuss. A new selection committee was highly unlikely to take a bold decision like leaving Ganguly out, especially when Australia was the opposition.
There're a few surprising aspects of the squad though.
- Ganguly has been included without any sort of serious match practice. He wasn't in the Rest of India side for the Irani Trophy. He wasn't playing for India A. He played a couple of local tournaments (JP Atray Trophy & Pearls Trophy).
- There're only two openers - Sehwag and Gambhir. I'd have thought three openers would need to have been named to account for illness or injury. Of course, if the selectors, in their immense wisdom, wanted Rahul Dravid (batting avg. 32 as opener from 17 innings, with 2 centuries and 1 fifty) to open, then there's a huge disaster around the corner.
- What's the need to have a 15-member squad for a home series?
- Why is RP Singh included when his Irani Trophy performance (9-0-31-0 & 13-2-49-0), as well as his recent test record (no wickets from the last 4 innings he bowled in), give no hope?
Update: The BCCI website now has a press release.
Labels: aus v ind 2008, ganguly, india, squad
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| Why do we need 3 openers ?
actually it is quite unpredictable squad..Ganguly was not sure that he will be inside for the test matches.
buzzz: What if Sehwag or Gambhir gets injured 1 hr before the toss? Sending Dravid out to open would be a pathetic solution.
dheeruyadav: I have no idea why you thought Ganguly would have been a surprise selection. I didn't expect anything different from a new committee, despite him not having been selected for the Irani trophy. The surprise selection was Amit Mishra ahead of Piyush Chawla or Pragyan Ojha.
By 
Jagadish (6 Oct 2008, 2:19:00 pm)
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