Men in Blue for 2011 WC

Th World Cup is around the corner. It has almost moved to the middle of the room. Taking place in 3 Asian countries, it’s going to be a real tight fight. The Aussies, the 3-time champions (altogether 4 times) are of course the favorites again. But since 2007, many changes have taken place in all the 10 Test playing teams, making even Bangladesh among the cup favorites.

So talking about Team India, these 5 years made a lot of revolutionary changes in the side with the retirement of Ganguly and Kumble and the forced “rest” of Dravid from the ODI side. Lot of young talent made it into the team announcing that Indian team wont fade even after the official retirement of Dravid & Tendulkar. India re-built after the 2007 World Cup straight from the head as Mahendra Singh Dhoni, the coolest captain India had ever seen, took charge and in the first T20 WC itself he proved his efficiency. Since then many historic wins under this wicket-keeper batsman have happened.

Coming to the Indian team structure for the World cup will be most probably 7-1-2-5 ie; 7 specialist batsmen, 1 wicket keeper, 2 all rounders and 5 bowlers in the 15 men squad. Among the 7, the cemented places are for Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina and Gautam Gambhir. The wicket keeper post is well cemented. In the bowling department, the 5 places are well decidedif there is not going to be a injury. Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, R Aswin and Praveen Kumar. will be the bowlers. In the all rounder spots, there has not yet been a clear picture. So lets talk about the 2 all rounder spots and 2 batsmen spaces left.

Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Badrinath, Karthik (giving him a specialist batsman spot), Uthappa and Sourabh Tiwary are the contenders for the remaining two places in this team. Among this, Sourabh is the only left hander. Having Suresh Raina and Yuvraj Singh in the middle order, I don’t think the management will be going for an other left hander. So I exclude him. Then comes Virat Kohli. If he continues his present form till the World Cup, then one place is sure for this young aggressive player. The big fight comes for the remaining last spot. I can exclude Badrinath and Karthik since both of them are not performing well in the domestic season right now. The remaining contenders are Rohit Sharma and Robin Uthappa. Rohit Sharma, while a talented player, is inconsistent. He is not a good slogger either. But Robin Uthappa can be used in any spot from 1 to 7. He can provide some defensive shots as well as some very attacking shots. So Uthappa fills the 7th batsman spot in my Indian squad of 15 members.

Coming to the all-rounder spot, there are mainly 3 contenders – the Pathan brothers and Ravindra Jadeja. Jadeja is very talented. But he still hasn’t proven his batting skills at the international level. His left arm slower ones are dangerous but he never proves to be handy with the bat. There is a chance for Yusuf Pathan here. He is the most dangerous batsman in the world in the current era. He is capable of scoring 200 runs in the last 10 overs. His off-breaks are often sources of horror for the batsman. So Yusuf fills in. Then the last spot of the 15 man squad is between Irfan Pathan and Ravindra Jadeja. I prefer Irfan Pathan. He is a death overs specialist and can be handy with the bat. He can bat at any position from 1-7. So Irfan Pathan fills in.

So here is my 2011 ICC world cup Squad:-

Virender Sehwag (VC)Sachin TendulkarGautam GambhirYuvraj SinghRobin UthappaSuresh RainaVirath KohliMS Dhoni (C) (WK)Yusuf PathanIrfan PathanHarbhajan SinghPraveen KumarZaheer KhanAshish Nehra

R Ashwin