This Week in Cricket (28/9/2008 - 5/10/2008)

Indian Team for first two tests

Even though selection panel and its working process were changed, team is on expected lines except for the side kicks and Ganguly. Only beneficiary seems to be Badrinath in the place of Rohit Sharma; looks like extra batsmen is selection committee chairman's pick;). Having said that, Badri deserves his place on merit alone; he has one of the top averages in Indian domestic cricket. Not sure what special Amith Sharma has done recently to pip Chawla and Ojha for third spinner's position.

Bringing back Ganguly holds no logic after he was dropped from the team for Irani trophy. This shows lack of understanding between different selection panels.

India - Australia test series

This is India's best chance to defeat Australia if batting clicks and right pitches (spinner friendly) are provided. Australian batting looks little shaky and bowling is heavily dependent on pace. It will be foolish if pitches have any resemblance of grass. Series against Australia is not the time to provide sporting pitches for game's development; India never gets batting wickets when we play at Perth or Durban.

Indian 11 for the first test looks well settled with 6 batsmen,4 bowlers ( Zaheer, Ishant, Kumble, and Harbhajan). Australia on the other hand will have to think whether it makes sense to play spinner for the sake of variety.

Australia Vs Board President's XI

Highlight was RIcky Ponting' struggle against Chawla. Rohit Shrama and Virat Kohli batted with lot of confidence and got deserving centuries in first innings. I was surprised to see that, this was Rohit Sharma's second first class century; some of the youngsters like him and Kohli have got thier chances very early; it is up to them now to justify their fast tracking to big league. I almost forgot: Yuvraj scored a century in second innings; as things stand now, Badrinath and Rohit Sharma are ahead of Yuvarj in the race for extra batsman's in the test team.