Likely team :: India V Bangladesh

Some of the opening games against the minnows saw a few off-form batsmen find form against some of the lesser-ranked teams. While A. B. de Villiers will rue his party-bus-miss against The Netherlands, his captain certainly got into the swing of things. Greame Smith hasn’t been travelling quite that well in ODIs lately. His last 15 games have yielded 385 runs at 29.61. Mahela Jayawardene’s last 15 ODI’s have yielded 335 at 23.26. Sehwag’s last 15 ODIs have yielded ugly results for the talented blaster. He has only 225 runs at 17.30! Shocking results really.

Smith and Jayawardene found batting form against Bermuda and The Netherlands, respectively. It is, therefore, an option for India to use the games against Bangladesh and Bermuda to help Sehwag find some runs. If he does, this then sets up the rest of the tournament for India.

In my view, the choice that has to be made is around which 2 of [Uthappa, Sehwag, Pathan] should play. I suspect that the rest of the 9 players in the team will be Sourav Ganguly, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Rahul Dravid, M. S. Dhoni, Ajit Agarkar, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel. There could be a debate had over the [Harbhajan Singh Vs Anil Kumble] choice. But I’d like to think that the Turbanator has done enough to be on the team sheet as the sole frontline spinner in the team.

So, it is down to picking 2 from Sehwag, Uthappa and Pathan.

My choice would be to go with Uthappa and Pathan. However, I suspect that the team management will go with Sehwag and Pathan.

The thinking over the picks of Sehwag and Pathan would be to provide Sehwag and Pathan a run of two games against Bangladesh and Bermuda. If Sehwag doesn’t fire in these two games, they can always bring in Uthappa for the game against Sri Lanka — he is in form anyway and has had a recent look at the Sri Lankans. The reason for this persistence is the advantage that Sehwag gives the team with 5-6 overs of off-spin too. They would not need this additional cover if Pathan is bowling well. If Pathan were bowling well, the team would have a 5-bowler attack in Zaheer, Agarkar, Munaf, Harbhajan and Pathan. Unfortunately, Pathan is still not quite there. Hence the cover needed in the form of Sehwag, Tendulkar and Ganguly. So, the strategy in the first two games would be to play Sehwag and/or Pathan into rhythm and form. Uthappa, unfortunately, may have to be sacrificed for the sake of overall team balance.

Dravid indicated that the Indian team had decided on the final XI but weren’t announcing it till the appointed hour.

I’d like to see the likely team (in batting order) as:

1 Robin Uthappa, 2 Sourav Ganguly, 3 Irfan Pathan, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Rahul Dravid (capt), 6 Yuvraj Singh, 7 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), 8 Ajit Agarkar, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Munaf Patel

Cricinfo predicts the likely team as:

1 Virender Sehwag, 2 Sourav Ganguly, 3 Sachin Tendulkar, 4 Yuvraj Singh, 5 Rahul Dravid (capt), 6 Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), 7 Irfan Pathan, 8 Ajit Agarkar, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Munaf Patel

If it is the Cricinfo team, I’d still like Pathan to bat at #3.

– Mohan