India's tour of South Africa: What's in store for Dhoni and co. in the African safari?

As the spot-fixing scandal and the hullabaloo surrounding the dirty deeds of IPL calms down, without any concrete actions from the BCCI, the Indian media and the country’s maniacal cricket supporters turn their attention towards the next big series in South Africa.

Of late, there’s been quite a bit of talk about the pitches that are going to be dished out and what the team composition would be after the dismal failures of Gautam Gambhir and Virender Sehwag the last time they represented the nation.

The thing is, Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay will start as first choice openers when that first ball of the series is bowled, but who will be the reserve opener?

Gambhir has made his way to England and is playing for Essex to get some serious match practice and get back into shape to stake a claim for the 3rd opener’s spot. So, as far as the team composition goes, it looks like Gambhir could be the only man to push for the sole reserve spot at the moment.

The no.3 position has been booked by the gritty Cheteshwar Pujara, and as of now, he doesn’t really have a competition for that spot.

With Sachin Tendulkar seemingly poised to keep his place in the side for one last time, as far as backup for the no.4 spot goes, I think Rohit Sharma or Ajinkya Rahane will get on the bench. Virat Kohli has made the no.5 position his own and at no.6 in the line-up will come Captain cool, MS Dhoni.

The intriguing question here is whether India would go in with Jadeja as a batting all-rounder who can bowl, or would they strengthen the batting order by bringing in a certain Suresh Raina or Rohit Sharma to give our batting much needed depth.

The news doing round these days is that Zaheer Khan is doing his bit to get into top shape and be in the fray when the selection panel sits down in Mumbai to pick the 15-man squad for the tour of South Africa.

Zaheer, who has lead the Indian bowling attack over the last 5 odd years, has gone on to say, “I need to prove my fitness and bowling form through the domestic competitions before the South African series”.

So, if everything goes to plan for Zaheer, then, we could have him back as the leader of the bowling attack with Ishant Sharma and Umesh Yadav as the next default choices for Dhoni.

Not to forget the sensation that our nation has unearthed in Bhuvneshwar Kumar. While he isn’t the kind of bowler who will get much pace by hitting the hard decks of South Africa, he should enjoy the seamer-friendly conditions that will prevail there.

So, it is going to be interesting what our selectors have in mind. We can’t be a bowling heavy or a batting heavy side; striking a balance is imperative.

The XI that could be on show when the series starts is: Murali Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, MS Dhoni, Ravidra Jadeja/Suresh Raina/Rohit Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin, Zaheer Khan/Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma.

That leaves us with 4 more spots on the bench. You would ideally need a backup opener, a couple of bowlers, a spare wicket keeper/a middle order batsman.

But, like any other overseas series in the last 3-4 years ever since Dhoni has taken over, he has taken the wicketkeeping mantle all upon himself and hasn’t gone for a backup keeper. It remains to be seen whether there are any changes this time around.

The buzzing news is that Ishwar Pandey is being given a thought, with Glenn McGrath giving him some much needed training, and he could be in contention for that 4th bowler’s spot.

I see Rohit and Rahane both travelling with the team, although Raina has done himself no harm by scoring a ton while playing for the India ‘A’ side.

Bhuvneshwar Kumar

With the team selection discussed, it’s time to turn the attention towards the 22 yards and what awaits us. It’s always a common talking point whenever India tours abroad and this series is going to be no different.

India ‘A’ have done tremendously well in South Africa in the recently concluded unofficial tests and even in the triangular one-day competitions. But the news is that the pitches provided for the series didn’t have lot of chillies and spice added to it which is understandable.

Like any other series, the home team, in this case South Africa, can’t make the mistake of leaving too much of grass on the wicket as it could well turn out to be a suicidal move.

They have got to strike a balance between leaving a decent covering of grass and ensure that the wickets have good bounce to test the Indian batsmen.

Last time around, as always, we started off the tour slowly with a below par display at the Centurion in the first innings with the bat. And also, we were missing Zaheer for the first Test, which meant Jaidev Unadkat was handed the chance to impress on his debut, though he was taken to the cleaners. Although our batting display did improve the second time around, we failed to make South Africa bat again, and lost by an innings.

Coming into the second Test, our bowling was bolstered with the return of Zaheer and on a spicy Kingsmead pitch in Durban, we stunned South Africa by 87 runs. After having done all that hard work and actually having them on the mat at 98-5 in CapeTown in the third Test at one stage, we left them off the hook and Kallis and Boucher came together at the crease and the match ended in a draw with the series finishing at 1-1.

Our first Test series win in South Africa still hasn’t happened and my gut feeling is that this team this year could be ‘the one’ to bring India glory.

If we get off to a decent start and with the kind of strength our team possesses, I wouldn’t rule out a stellar 2-0 series win.