What now for Team India ??

So in the end, the miracle did not happen !!. Australia squeaked home with two wickets and thus marched into the Champions Trophy semi-finals and in doing so, dashed the hopes of millions across India. Not that the hopes would have been too great, since an honest Indian fan will admit that India got out of jail on Monday, saved by the thunderstorm that hit Centurion. Therefore, Indian fans had no real business wanting Pakistan to win. Our team was clearly not amongst the top four teams in this competition and hence are on their way back.

And once they do come back, Dhoni and co. have some thinking to do. Hopefully, they would not walk into a more-than-neccessary adverse reaction. The team at an overall level are still amongst the top four teams in world cricket and they were missing three of their main ODI players. But the fact remains that for the second time in four months, India have failed to qualify for the last four in a major ICC event. Shades of South Africa anyone ? Hope not !!!

Two questions will be uppermost on the minds of Dhoni and the selectors when they meet to select the team for the next (meaningless ?) ODI assignment - 7 ODI's against Australia starting October 25th. The first would be the vexed question of what to do know with Rahul Dravid ??? He was recalled after seeing the young brigade jumping like a cat on a hot tin roof in the T20 World Cup, in the expectation that pitches in South Africa would be similar in nature. Instead, what we encountered were slow turners, first in Sri Lanka (expectedly) and then in Centurion (not so expectedly). And our man has managed returns of 14, 47, 39, 76 and 4. Not bad at all, though some people can still be harsh on him in saying that the 76 could have been scored slightly quickly. But now the question begs, what next with him ? Do we again push him back in the ODI wilderness (especially once Sehwag and Yuvraj are back) or keep him until he calls it a day on his own terms. It seems that the former is the more distinct possibility. I guess when the throw hit the stumps directly some time back (in the game against the Windies), Rahul Dravid himself realized that he had ran himself out of the Indian ODI squad. And that would be a sad end to the ODI career of one of India's best servants.

The other question is that of the pace bowling. Ashish Nehra apart, the rest looked plain ordinary in South Africa. Zaheer was, of course, missed but the form of Ishant Sharma is worrying. His honeymoon is clearly over and, given his limited batting and fielding ability, some time away from the ODI team might do him a world of good. With RP Singh also struggling, the pace bowling cupboard looks bare again. Sreesanth must be seeing the Indian team recall closer than ever. When it comes to spin bowling, things are not that better either. We need to develop an alternative to Harbhajan, and the ODI version might be the best place to start. Mishra performed creditably in the Australia game, but we need others to step in. Piyush Chawla faded away after some promise, but the boy has age on his side and must be persisted with. Ditto with Pragyan Ojha. Its time that Bhajji is rotated along with the other spinners in the ODIs and T20. And of course, our search for that successor to Kapil Dev continues !!! First Agarkar, then Irfan Pathan and now Yusuf Pathan. But like a mirage, that dream keeps running away from us.

So it is quite a task for the selectors. And just to put myself in their boots, here is my 14 member squad for the Australia series (assuming Yuvraj and Zaheer not fit till then):

Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Sachin Tendulkar (to be replaced by Yuvraj when fit), Suresh Raina, VIrat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, S Badrinath, MS Dhoni (C and WK), Abhishek Nayar, Ashish Nehra, S Sreesanth, Praveen Kumar, Amit Mishra, Pragyan Ojha

Of course, performances in the Challenger Trophy starting October 8th can change the above !!

Cheers

Amit