Indian cricket works on reputations.
The selectors began the tour by choosing the fading Anil Kumble ahead of the in-form left-arm spinner Murali Kartik; the tour management has now taken it a step further by dropping the in-form opener S Ramesh for the first Test at Brisbane.
Consider the three openers' performances in the two warm-up games:
Virender Sehwag has batted for all of 83 balls and has scores of 23, 20, 6 and 4. Akash Chopra has scores of 2, 55, 0 and 11 of 178 balls.
S Ramesh scored 181 runs off 444 deliveries, with scores of 87, 36, 21 and 37.
Any way you look at it, Ramesh was the obvious pick played more deliveries (read, longevity at the wicket); scored more runs; played the anchor role when India was facing ignominy on one occasion
So, naturally, he had to be dropped.
What is even more interesting is the fact that Sehwag finds himself in the team at the expense of Ramesh in other words, Chopra was for the management an obvious pick.
How so, though? Chopra got his runs on placid batting tracks in India against a weak Kiwi attack; in Australia, he has looked a fish out of water.
The sole consolation is that Deep Dasgupta wasn't elevated to open his tour scores of 0 and 8 ensured that he had to sit out.
Skipper Sourav Ganguly, meanwhile, won the toss and opted to field. One view could be that he wanted his bowlers to have first use of a seaming wicket with moisture underfoot and clouds overhead; the other view is that he didn't want to present Australia's bowlers with perfect conditions to bowl in, risking the exposure of his own batsmen.
The decision carries a risk. If India's bowlers don't take quick wickets and a short square leg catch by Chopra off a no ball by Nehra is the only sniff they have had till date then the course of the game will raise visions of a similar Nasser Hussain decision in the first Test of an earlier Ashes series; it proved a blunder England never recovered from.
