In the words of VV Kumar – “Appanna has shown in his first season that he has promise. But he needs time – I wouldn’t recommend playing him ahead of Ojha” (Source: CricInfo Magazine). I think it is time to do more of my “Prospective Players” posts and I will include Appanna in it.

Chandan – The fact that Shahbaz Nadeem has a very high bowling average in spite of playing in the (weaker) plate league shows that he has a long way to go (this was also talked about in the same issue of CricInfo)

Tell us more about Appanna. I hardly know anything about him apart from the fact that he had an impressive 06-07 Ranji season!

And the spin cupboard is not as bare as Vengsarkar has suggested. How about the leggie Amit Mishra? Also there is very good SLA bowler named Shahabaz Nadeem who plays for Bihar and hence isn’t in the news as much. I had seen him bowling with Chawla at U-19 level and Maninder Singh especially had praised him in glowing terms.

I won’t consider the door to be closed on Dinesh Mongia and Aakash Chopra although your point on Nehra is perhaps quite valid. Murali Kartik’s inclusion in the mix just points to the bareness of the cupboard. I can’t remember where I read it, but Vengsarkar recently commented along similar lines when talking about left-arm spinning options in India.

Apologies for including Gambhir. It was an oversight and perhaps my innate desire that he shouldn’t be in the mix for the senior team

Dhawan should be in the mix. You are right. Isn’t it amazing that 4 of the opener-contenders (Sehwag, Aakash Chopra, Dhawan and Gambhir) are all from Delhi?

And you are right about Uthappa.

The point about assembling a team of 26-30 personnel accommodates the possibility that, at any point in time, some of these personnel may be travelling on other representative teams (U-19, NCA-XI, etc). Hence Appanna. In my view he is one U-19 who is perhaps ‘ready’ for India-A duties already.

And yes, Abdullah and Kohli should perhaps be in too.

Thanks.

As far as I know, Akash Chopra, Dinesh Mongia, Rakesh Patel, Nehra and Murali Kartik are never going to be considered for India’s matches.

Also Gambhir is already with the test team in England and Appanna is in the U-19 squad travelling to Lanka later this month.

So I would suggest Dhawan’s name for the opener’s slot instead of Gambhir. Isn’t Uthappa an opener in the domestic circuit though?

In place of Murali Kartik, I’d like the board to groom Abdullah instead who is an extremely talented bowler.

I’ll have to look for the name in the pace deparment which I had found 3 months back.

How did you miss Virat Kohli of Delhi ?