Indian selection dilemma is over, Australia's persists

(Media Watch One for Dec 24, More to follow above this post)

With India finally deciding that Dravid will open (Dravid to ‘crack’ open puzzle in IE and in most news channels yesterday), it is clear that Sehwag will have to wait for his chance from the bench on a ground where he was so lethal with that 195 four years ago.

But one thing good about the decision is that it has been made three days before the test, rather than a day before or in the morning. It will help Dravid get into the opening ‘mindset’ sooner than later. Since now Yuvraj too knows he is in, there is going to be more intensity about his preparations. Sehwag can be called unlucky, but he will surely have his chance in January-Feb 2008.

However, the Australians may still not have decided on whether to include Chinaman Hogg, or go with all pace attack at the Melbourne Test. It will be wise for Australia to include a man about whom Muralitharan says that ‘’the World’s top batsmen can’t pick his wrong ones.’’ Indian batsmen are capable of clobbering a unidimensional pace attack at will on a benign pitch. Australia will certainly need some variety.

If one goes by what the curator has to say, it is not going to be a green top and even he has asked Australia to include a spinner. And if it is not a green top, then even India must go in with their best attack. That is, two spinners and two seamers.

Australia bound team will miss character

A Character, to be precise!

Well, mercurial and temperamental Sreesanth is not among the Australia bound probables in the team so anyone in India or down under, hoping to see another Symonds-Sreesanth tussle will be in for disappointment.

Also, Australian skipper Ricky Ponting will have no chance of assessing if Sreesanth's aggression was real, or fake!

Virender Sehwag, such a prolific score on the Last tour in 2003-04, too does not find favour with the selectors. However, Aakash Chopra does find a place, and could well get a ticket to Australia along with Gautam Gambhir, considering his solid show in domestic cricket of late.

Here is the list of Probables for the Australia tour.
Anil Kumble (captain), MS Dhoni (WK and Vice Captain),
Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik (WK), Gautam Gambhir ,
Rahul Dravid, Harbhajan Singh, Sachin Tendulkar,
Saurav Ganguly, Vangipurappu Laxman, Yuvraj Singh,
Irfan Pathan, Ishant Sharma, VRV Singh, Murali Kartik,
Zaheer Khan, RP Singh, Munaf Patel, Ranadeb Bose,
Pankaj Singh, Piyush Chawla, Ajit Agarkar, Parthiv Patel, Akash Chopra.