Gautam Gambir a strong contender for opening

The form is what matters and that has happened to Gautam Gambir. After a good stint at 2020 and a few one day internationals and a great knock in the Ranji trophy with Mumbai he has further strengthened his position as a strong contender for test also. Our approach to the game has to be professional lets give chance to somebody who is a professional opener and who has been opening for their state. GG has been a long time opener for his state Delhi in both forms cricket. Even in the past selectors have just been experimenting to fill up the opening slot for the tests. It dates back to the 70's when they could never get the perfect partner for Sunny before they finally managed to get Chetan Chauhan. We have so many openers come and gone to name a few S.Ramesh, W. V.Raman., Sewhag, Deep Dasgupta, S.Das to name. a few.

You need a specialist for specialist position. You cannot ask a General Physician to perform a surgery when that's not his speciality. It his high time the selectors draw a plan to get good openers who will play the role of an opener and not a makeshift player like Kartik. In the past we had several make shift openers like Anshuman Gaekwad, Dilp Vengsarkar, Roger Binny, Ashok Mankad, Nayan Mongia, Manoj Prabhakar.

By forcing Dinesh Kartik to open in test and his constant failure can upset his career and bring down the morale . We need to really have a very focused strategy to identify good openers. And somebody who has been playing for his state on a continuous basis.

India should look at long term opening pair

Dinesh Kartik is a great team player and in the words of Greg Chapell he is a captaincy material. Kartik did well in South Africa and England when our regular openers failed especially Sewhag who has lost his rhythm both in one day and test cricket. Dinesh Kartik after his good test show has not been doing well in the one days. Even in the Delhi test he was caught easily in both the innings. When we have opener who keep on failing puts pressure on the other opener. Fortunately that did not affect Wasim Jaffer who batted well in both the innings.

The selectors need to think long term. Dinesh Kartik is not a long term proposition to open the innings in test. We must have some back up plan, Gautam Gambhir and Parthiv Patel is what one can think of immediately based on their form. We must start scouting for good talent for the opening slot in case Kartik is not able to live up to the expectation.

At the same Kartik needs to be handled carefully as he is a long term asset for the Indian team as a great team man and a sound wicket keeper.

Is captaincy a golden handshake to Kumble ?

The last one can recall a bowler leading an Indian side was Srinivas Venkataraghavn the lanky off spinner from Tamil Nadu. Although Kapil was also a bowler who lead India but he was more of an all rounder then only a bowler. Then there was the controversial Bishen Singh Bedi who lead India and who will never forget his disaster performance when he toured Pakistan. Both Venkat and Bedi could never lead from the front. In the case of Venkat he was axed as the captain in the most unceremonious manner. After his tour of England when the team was returning the air hostess in the flight announced the news of Venkat dropped as captain.

Dhoni has so far managed to lead well in the shorter version of the game. Here I agree with Ravi Shastri that it will be a huge blunder to burden him at a time when Indian cricket is trying to come back to stability after the world cup fiasco.

We must also realise that the game of cricket has produced some great bowlers as match winning captains. Richie Benaud and Ray illingworth is what comes to mind with ease. Benaud of course was undoubtedly the most smartest and shrewed est captain that Australia had. Intikab Alam was another great bowler who lead Pakistan for some time but not so successful.

In Anil Kumble we have a warhorse with abundance experience. His last and only test century against England in England has raised his confidence and that must have prompted the selectors to handover the captaincy baton to Jumbo as he is popularly called by this team mates. While the series against Pakistan may be easy in our land but with the Kangaroos playing in their land would be a daunting task .

Our selectors will never change

There was nothing wrong when Jimmy Amarnath called the selectors a bunch of jokers some years back. The same legacy continues even today when Dilip Vengsarkar dropped Dravid. The decision was unanimous and it went against Dravid as his form was very poor over the last few matches .If form was the criteria Vengsarkar should come out in the open and say so. Instead he went beating around the bush by saying that he is being rested. Colonel who are we fooling ? The cricket fans in India are very intelligent and they know what is going around.

What is even more surprising and upsetting is that he has been just dropped for 2 matches. One really cannot make out what signals are being sent. To be frank it is very vague and ambiguous.
One can broadly conclude if you rub the wrong side with either the selector, coach or the board official you are made the scape boat and sidelined. We had Ganguly who had tough times with Greg Chappell and was given a horrid time by the board and now the turn is of Dravid. Can board give an answer to the cricketing fraternity and fans as to why they dropped Jammy ? Well they are all spineless who are just interested in the commercial and profitability aspect of the board. Human values is just missing.

Will ICL spring some thing surprising to teach these people ? Lets wait and watch.