Character assassination

A perfect recce to the West Indies he averaged 51 just a year before the World Cup alone should have clinched him the berth.

Mohammad Kaif: A perfect recce to the West Indies 8212; he averaged 51 just a year before the World Cup8212; alone should have clinched him the berth. But Kaif8217;s series stats had plunged into a mess on either side of that fruitful Caribbean trip. Yo-yoing through the middle order, Kaif had given ample evidence of hoarding the runs when slotted against a fixed number on the batting chart. He was scoring at an average of 93 when assigned a definite role at No 3 in the tri-series in Zimbabwe. Then he top-scored with 205 in the West Indies last summer where he stuck to No 5 on most occasions. Kaif often found himself in the dark end of the tunnel and single-digit averages including a notorious string of zeroes whenever the vacillation resumed, moving him from No 7 to No 3 in Malaysia, before being ignored altogether. Ductility while fielding 8212; Yes; flexibility in batting order 8212; No.

Suresh Raina: Two home series with bulging averages and a livewire presence on the field perhaps gave him the extended rope, although a sub-par average of under 25 in the last one year and repeated failures didn8217;t really result in the coach losing his fancy for this youngster. The middle-order, as a result, always looked brittle and eventually needed propping up from Sachin Tendulkar.

Irfan Pathan: His fortunes swayed and sloped more than the ball he had famously swung in Australia and Pakistan. From a prodigious swing bowler to an utterly clueless cricketer who was sent home from a touring party, Pathan didn8217;t quite emerge the great all-rounder he was tipped to be. Never quite confessing to those aspirations himself, the expectations though were thrust on him after a blinder of an 83 against Lanka at No 3 and another 65 against the visiting Pakistan up the order were perceived as the rule, rather than the exceptions that they really were. All through this presumption, the youngster8217;s bowling started going wayward and pace dropped 8212; essentially the bread and butter stuff.

Virender Sehwag: Walking out with different partners every time he strutted out on the field the list reads Dhoni, Kaif, Ganguly, Tendulkar, Gambhir, Dravid, Uthappa wouldn8217;t have had him as fussed as being asked ocassionally to drop down and then jump back pronto 8212; that too when India were in the midst of their deep purple patch on flat-tracks of the subcontinent. Even in the lead-up to the World Cup and while battling his own poor form, Sehwag was alternating between the middle-order or one-drop and taking strike up-front. In the three matches at the World Cup, Sehwag contrived to notch a century and a counter-attacking 48 at No 3, never quite resolving his batting position. When Uthappa sneaked up the ladder on the back of half-a-dozen good showings, and Ganguly staked claims on his favourite position, it was a game of musical chairs all over again.

M S Dhoni: The No 3 spot was perhaps the most abused of the lot, the experiments annoyingly dubbed innovations revolving around the one-drop. Everyone from Raina to Dhoni had a go at it, though one would8217;ve thought Rahul Dravid perfectly fitted the mould. Dhoni found some success coming one-down initially, but looked lost when asked to switch from making the most of power-plays with a mixture of caution and force to finishing the job with his brute power at No 7.

Bowlers at large: When Chappell took over from John Wright, India8217;s bowling arsenal had a settled look to it with Zaheer, Nehra, Agarkar, Kumble and Harbhajan all figuring in the scheme of things alongside the blue-eyed boy Pathan. A mixture of injuries and some mindless rotation, evictions on alleged disciplinary grounds, all wrecked the setup thereafter. Murali Kartik was consumed by oblivion on his return from the shoulder surgery despite being an integral part of the team in the super-sub days and RP Singh never looked the same bowler in his intermittent appearances that he was when picking the Man of the Match award post the Faisalabad Test.