This might sound irony or a blunt weapon to invite criticism that I am an ‘unconditional’ fan of Indian Cricket Team. Taking nothing away from South Africa on their wonderful performance, I still insist that they haven’t bet the World #1 team yet. With no Dravid, Lakshman I do not think that we can even call this team a team. Minus Kallis and Amala, SA wold be a bunch of jokers, with all due respect. Me and my friend who plays his usual ‘gully’ cricket in MA, often debate over Cricket matches and he takes great pride in supporting any team playing opposite to India. Of course, he doesn’t understand Cricket a bit and his ignorance towards the game matches my younger son’s visionary over his Nintendo DS.

More than anything this is selection panel’s loss. Sehwag has proved that he can wack the same Steyn around all around the park faster than he can bowl. Paul Harris stuck to his ‘negative’ line of bowling which remembers me Steve Waugh’s down-under game with India. Wherein Amit Mishra with his orthodox action might have missed a trillion edges of SA’s batting. In plain terms, other than Steyn’s success they rode completely over luck. Kallis was almost run-out when he was on 2 and he did not had a clue what length Mishra was bowling to and their edges out weigh their total score by zillions. Again, irony it may sound, look at the way our main batsmen got out, more than the bowling it was shot selection. In a given day, Sehwag can put 11 out of 10 outside the off stump balls to boundary (you can build a china-wall, it will still pierce through). The team lost the test even before the first ball was bowled, having no choice but to pick Saha (no offenses on Saha) who never in his life have dreamt of making a debut because a stand-by got injured that morning 15 minutes before the play.

Tet match is about sessions and nothing else. Gauti might have made two consecutive erroneous decisions, but he seldom does that and Kolkata will be a perfect place to set that right. Hoping that Lakshman will come back to the game, we still miss Dravid, who at #3 places his innings with perfection. India should forget what happened at Kanpur as SA did not win that game, its India who have lost its game, right from selection time. Sreesanth and Raina have been called back to the squad (hilarious than it sounds) as it makes it no better combination. My pick would be,

1. Gambhir
2. Sehwag
3. Vijay
4. Sachin
5. Lakshman
6. Kohli
7. Dhoni
8. Harbhajan
9. Mishra
10. Zaheer
11. Sreesanth

If Badrinath or Raina plays in place of Kohli, I don’t think it would make too much different and Gambhir should be 1st down while promoting Vijay to open the innings.

Dhoni is an excellent captain and he accepts his mistakes more boldly than any other captain around. He was playing with 8 instead of 11 players and I do not blame him for that. If Bhajji resorts to ‘negative’ line, I guess SA will take decades to search for the ball. Game is ON.