| The World Cup is around six months away, and the injuries seem to have hit India hard enough for the board to sit up and take notice. That is, if they do not want the side to go down the same lane as they had in 2007.
If fit, the Indian side has a batting line-up to marvel. The choice of the two openers out of Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag is as close as it could get to the phrase, ‘embarrassment of riches’. Gambhir could miss out and bat at three. Suresh Raina’s excellent form merits him a number four slot, and even if Yuvraj Singh gets his form back, he will get in at five.
MS Dhoni will come in at six, while two frontline spinners and two pace bowlers – or three and one – will make it six of the seven top-order players. This leaves out Dinesh Karthik, Virat Kohli, Saurabh Tiwary, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Yusuf Pathan and even Irfan Pathan and Robin Uthappa, to fight it out for that lone berth at seven.
The question is whether everyone will be match-ready by then. Gambhir’s exploits have been there for all to see, but there are growing concerns about his fitness, while Yuvraj has failed to exhibit 100% fitness since the 2009 edition of the Champions Trophy. Dhoni has been nursing his niggles quietly, but it was all too evident that all was not well with his fingers in the third Test against Sri Lanka and then the first ODI of the Micromax Cup.
With Sehwag having had his own issues with back spasms, Tendulkar and Raina look to be the fittest of the lot for India. As for the rest, the board need to come up with a strategy to cut out on the meaningless cricket, rotate the players around and pray hard.
|
