Arm Ball

And their best bowler in the warm up game is not going to play the most important game of the CT. Not because he is a lowly bowler on talent, but because his captain doesnt put that trust in him.

This is South Africa and there is place for just one spinner. And that spinenr is going to be Harbhajan Singh who is fresh from a 5-for.

RP Singh had a fabulous T20 world cup in 2007. How far he goes this time is not very sure as he is not seeming to be in good form. He was clobbered for 66 runs in 8 overs by Neil Broom.

Ishant Sharma has been on and off. Praveen Kumar well I am not sure if he would be playing. Ashish Nehra seems to be the best bet to rely on right now.

Zaheer Khan seems to be missed big time in this tournament. A country where he has been tremendously successful except the match on 3/23/03 against Australia, the biggest match of his career.

Possible bowling line up looks like : Nehra, Ishant, Harbhajan and RP.

Batting more or less looks settled. Tendulkar, Gambhir to open with Dravid at 3, Yuvraj at 4, MS at 5, Raina at 6. 7th spot seems to be in a bit of doubt. I would rather give the benefit of doubt to Yusuf Pathan in the first game and then may be try Nayar in the game against dummy Bangladesh…..

If the bowlers do their job half decent, the Indians would be good to live up to their reputation as the best ODI team in last 2 years. They have now won 6 trophies on trot. No other team can boast of the same record.

it would be a retro move to get back Dravid, but then there is no cut for experience…

India gets to play 8 tests this summer, 6 against good teams and 2 against minnows. Sachin, if he plays all he would be one test away from Steve Waugh’s record. Dravid would easily scale past Ponting and Border getting 11000 runs. Laxman all set to cross 7000 runs and the man at the top Sehwag crossing 6000 and the golden goose Gambhir crossing 3000 runs.

The biggest question for selectors would be the place of Ishant Sharma in the scheme fo things next season. He has been patchy in ODIs and T20s. Relatively OK in Tests. So I guess he should be played more in tests than limited overs format.

Ashish Nehra has proved out to be a good enough bowler in ODIs. Not sure how would he shape up, he could be a decent partner to Zaheer Khan in the ODIs if fit.

This combos are too far to discuss, but would be a lot of headache for the selectors to pick up right squad to continue mission 11 in right track.