Sport

Laxman should be in the eleven

— PHOTO: PTI

CORE GROUP: Seasoned campaigners Younis Khan and Shoaib Akhtar along with skipper Shoaib Malik during Pakistan team’s practice session at the Ferozeshah Kotla on Tuesday.

November, December and January are the best months to play Test cricket in India and for most of my career these were the main months of our international calendar at home.

Things have changed now, not necessarily for the better, but the times are such that more is considered good by the vast majority of those concerned with the affairs of the game.

There was a strange lack of intensity during the ODI series but I don’t see that happening during the Test series. For the players, Test cricket is still the ultimate format and I expect both India and Pakistan to be completely fired up by the time the series starts in Delhi on Thursday.

Pakistan’s win in the last ODI at Jaipur, a match that saw their skipper Shoaib Malik regain timely form, should do them no harm. Overall it does seem as if the Indians have the edge.

This can be mainly attributed to the brittle nature of the Pakistani openers. I am not even sure who the openers will be finally, a feeling the young Malik may share. Salman Butt’s return to form in the ODIs has sealed one spot but the other may be reduced to a toss up, given the number of openers that have been tried out in the recent past by our neighbours.

The onus will thus be on the experienced duo of Younis Khan and Mohammed Yousuf, who have the ability to bat long. These two will have to carry the batting unlike over in the Indian side, which now has a somewhat settled pair of openers in Wasim Jaffer and Dinesh Karthik, followed by one of the most formidable middle-orders in world cricket. Pakistan, led by Shoaib Akhtar, have a good pace attack but they will be severely tested by the depth in the Indian line-up.

The new Indian skipper Anil Kumble will be spending some sleepless nights pondering over the final eleven for the first Test, which will set the trend for the three-Test series. The first issue Kumble will have to tackle is whether to go in with five bowlers or four.

I have always been a supporter of the five-bowler theory, especially while playing at home. But I think for the first Test at least the Indians will play six batsmen, the wicketkeeper and four bowlers.

Most teams prefer to play safe initially and since Test cricket allows the option of a draw, we may see the batting strengthened here too as it is done in more bowler friendly conditions that prevail in places like England.

There is no doubt in my mind that V.V.S. Laxman should be one of the batsmen. I know Yuvraj Singh is in great nick but he will still have to wait. The more difficult decision will then switch to whether to field two quicks and two spinners or three quicks and the lone spinner in Kumble. The latter would be my preferred option even though we are playing at home and this is because we no longer play on dust bowls.

The pitches are truer these days and thus just two new ball operators may not be sufficient. Of course I have not had the opportunity to look at the pitches that will be used in any of the Tests, so the final decision has to be made based on the condition of the surface.

It is apparent isn’t it that captaincy is not just about setting fields and making the right bowling changes. It is much, much more than that. All in all, I expect a cracker of a series.

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