Well, long awaited Australian tour begins tomorrow. It would be interesting to see how the stalwarts perform. Guessing and predicting any thing in Cricket is the most dangerous thing.

I am amazed that inspite of a long discussion on Virender Sehwag’s performance in the past, no one has made a mention of him, now that he is with the team. Obviously, none of us thought of his selection considering his form and performance even in the Ranji Trophy and the few chances he got in one day series. Having taken him on the tour and not playing him would be the biggest blunder. While Sehwag has let down every one in recent times, I still believe that one good innings should bring his confidence back. He is the most dangerous player when in full flow and Australians know it too well.

While, Dravid would be opening, it looks absurd to me to ask him to open when there are three specialist openers in the team. My predictions are that, Yuvraj, Tendulkar, Dhoni, Pathan, Zaheer and Kumble are likely to perform as per expectations. If, I have my say in selection for the playing 11, I would go with the following combination:

Virender Sehwag
Wasim Zafar
Yuvraj Singh
Saurav Ganguly
Sachin Tendulkar
VVS Laxman
M S Dhoni
Irfan Pathan
Anil Kumble
Zaheer Khan
R P Singh/ Ishant Sharma (to give variety to the bowling attack as all those in this line up are left arm seamers)

12th Man: Dinesh Karthik

I will try to rotate Dravid in the middle order so that each of big four plays three tests each. I would definitely like to give at least a game each to Ishant Sharma, Pankaj Singh, Dinesh Karthik and Harbhajan Singh. Acutally Harbhajan should be playing at least two test, i.e. Brisbane and Sydney.

Let us have the discussion.