After much speculation and guessing Team India was selected for the World Cup. Selectors didn’t throw any surprises this time around and selected a more predictable team. As always this selection process is also marred by controversies. Front runner is inclusion of Virendra Shewag, who got a boost in confidence from the selectors and the captain. All others players select for themselves with few exceptions.
I predicted the world cup team couple of months back, my team came closely to what selected with exception of Uthappa, I had Gambhir in it. Given a chance I would also select Robin. Robin Uthappa has played couple of solid knocks and he often plays with straight bat which will be asset in West Indies. Gautam Gambhir is also a flamboyant player with variety of strokes in his armory but I think he gets carried away and throws his wicket casually; it’s a primary reason why he is not included in the squad.
Inclusion of Dinesh Karthik might have not gone well with some people, who thought Kaif or VVS might have been better choice. I totally disagree, I think VVS is a very good test player but his One Day game is not up to the mark. If India really want to take shot at winning world cup then they need a team and players who can really stretch to extreme in field. VVS lacks not only fielding abilities but also his running between the wicket is awful.
The area of concern for the Indians is there fielding. With top guns aging, the average age has gone up. One day cricket is all about running between wickets, taking catches and saving runs. The team that does the best will ultimately be the winner. Anil Kumble, Ganguly, Munaf are major concern in terms of there fielding abilities. Team India has to come up with plan to least exposes these players in trying fielding situations.
The key element is playing in West Indies is adapting to the conditions. As we has seen in last tour Indian players were not able to adapt to the changing conditions, hope this time around the story would be different. Ganguly, Tedulkar and Dravid forms the nucleus of the Indian batting. If one of them makes a big score in every match then only India can proceed through the tournament with ease.
The world cup is getting closure and I wish Indian team best luck and would expect them to win it.
I hope so…………..
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