India-Pak: Day one - A day of trials

Woke up on friday and quickly opened cricinfo.com to find out how things had turned out on Day 1 of India v Pakistan at lahore and was quite shocked at the turn of events. Firstly Pakistan had batted first and finished at 326/2 with Younis khan, who was such a thorn in the flesh for India when pakistan toured India last year, havin raced to an unbeaten 147 and Mohammed Yousuf unbeaten at 95. From the score it would seem that either the pitch is a batsman's paradise or the Indian bowling was rather poor. I suspect a liberal combination of both. Eitherway India should now be prepared to face a huge, daunting 1st innings total, definitely over 650 runs, unless the bowlers can perform a minor miracle and restrict Pakistan to a lower total. But as shocking as the scorecard read, what was equally baffling was the poor selection choices. Saurav Ganguly was brought in place of opener Gautham Gambhir and Ajit Agarkar was also given the nod ahead of Zaheer khan. What? Just when it seemed that under the guidance of Greg Chappell that this new look Indian team were ready to make some tough selection choices, they go ahead and commit a selection hara-kiri before a ball has even been bowled which may well influence the rest of the series and I daresay, looking at the 1st day's scorecard that it's not looking very good for India. It's of outmost importance that each team put their best foot forward in the beginning of any series and India it would seem was caught wearing non-matching pair of shoes.

Why would Dravid approve of a plan to drop an established opener, thus breaking a solid opening pair and bring in an extra middle-order player? Surely the middle-order is strong enough, it's always the Indian top order which looks fragile and which needed to be strenghtened. Afterall that was the reason to bring in three regular openers on this tour. But now there's only 1 regular opener in the playing eleven. Did Dravid expect Ganguly to open the Innings? There is no way that Ganguly would agree to open the innings. Even if he agreed, the chances of him succeeding are remote. He would prove far more useful in the middle-order. So the only logical alternative would be to push Yuvaraj Singh into the opener's slot. Afterall he was being groomed to open the innings before? But I feel that he is not equipped to open the innings and even if he did succeed in this test match and series he is Definitely NOT a long-term opening prospect. So why bother with uncertain short-term gains?

There are many who loathe the presence of Ajit Agarkar in the side and with the selectors misplaced confidence and persistence of Agarkar. I personally feel he is an excellent asset in ODI team but at the test level he lacks the required skills. His selection would surely only make the bowling less potent. Why is Zaheer khan, once the spearhead of the Indian bowling rotation now relegated to a second-string position?

Looking towards Day two for some answers.

-Nav