A cricket manthan, and how the Laxman rekha was breached

India seem to look increasingly towards a five bowler regime, certainly in home conditions, and with a renewed, and necessary, emphasis on specialist openers, it means there are only two middle order slots available. Sachin Tendulkar currently occupies one, and that means there is a bit of a dog-fight for the one that remains.

It has implications; it means, increasingly, that batsmen will have to learn to bat anywhere. It will help opening batsmen because it is easier to move down than to move up.

There is one other, more global, trend that we are seeing. Cricketers playing only one form of the game are struggling to hold their place, and I have no doubt that Laxman has lost out on that count. Like bowling, batting is about rhythm as well, about spending quality time in the middle, about being in the heat of the battle. Yuvraj Singh has discovered that, and the confidence of a few good matches in one-day cricket put him in the right frame of mind for Test cricket in Pakistan.

Elsewhere, some spirited one-day performances from Michael Clarke have helped him get a spot ahead of Brad Hodge, Michael Hussey found it wasn’t a bad route either and for a while Australia’s selectors allowed themselves to believe that Andrew Symonds was a better Test batsman than Damien Martyn.

Elsewhere, New Zealand are picking their new one-day batsmen into Test cricket, Ashwell Prince and Justin Kemp have made a similar move, and that means Justin Langer is now the only top player in the world getting by without playing one-day cricket. Luckily for him, he plays a pretty decent level of cricket when he is not playing for Australia and that allows him to stay in form.

Now away from the one-day game, Laxman was probably watching some fine young players get injections of confidence and time in the middle. It can make players insecure and lead them to believe that every opportunity is their last. In reality it is probably that way anyway, but confidence doesn’t allow thoughts like those to clutter the mind. But he will know that this was inevitable, had he been captain and the way ahead was to play five bowlers, he might have taken the same decision.

I suspect, though, that the five bowlers route is a horses-for-courses policy. India are backing their batsmen to come good in these conditions, but will probably go back to six batsmen when they travel. That will be the moment of reckoning for Laxman; that will decide whether he has another two or three years at this level. Only he can provide the answer though I suspect it will lie in a return to the more positive free-stroking ways. It might be too early to write an epitaph, but Laxman will know that it is being readied.

Meanwhile, Munaf Patel and Piyush Chawla get to wear India caps too. Patel, raw and till recently uncut, comes from a little town near Bharuch, and takes the place of a young man from Rae Bareli who two Test matches ago was thought to be a little gem. That is how quickly things are moving, but player’s careers need to be handled a little more sensitively than stocks and yet with both, volatility isn’t the best course.

Chawla comes from Aligarh, a university town often rocked by volatility of another kind. He is the flavour of the month and may he long be that way. Little is known about him at the moment and that can often be an advantage as it was with Sania Mirza. But like her, he has the ingredients and with his ability to bat at a decent number can actually help the five-bowler theory.

Indian cricket is riding a galloping horse, on and off the field.