Nehra fired blanks but did he jump the gun?

And the big question: Wouldn’t it have been better for Nehra to have prepared for a gruelling Test series with a couple of Ranji matches — and Delhi play Mumbai this weekend, so don’t worry about the lack of quality batting — rather than a few ODIs?

Things seemed right when Nehra was seen travelling with the Indian squad during the Test and ODI series without being named in the fourteen. Long sessions with the physio, trainer and coach told us that the World Cup star was being broken in slowly, the cotton-wool removed layer by layer.

When the team for the tri-series was named, Nehra’s name was missing. The left-arm pacer had failed a fitness test and so missed the first phase of the TVS Cup. On October 30, a day before the match against Australia in Mumbai, Nehra was declared fit — and was included at the expense of Balaji.

So what did Nehra do? Well, he sat on the bench for the Mumbai match, missing Delhi’s opening Ranji game against UP.

He could have played against New Zealand at Cuttack but, even when Sehwag got injured Dravid opted to play a batsman short, he remained on the bench.

The squad strength was subsequently raised to 15 — do the other two teams have the right to protest? — with Saurav Ganguly’s inclusion. And Nehra finally got his comeback chance today.

Which leaves us with one more question: if Nehra doesn’t play at Hyderabad, will the selectors take a quick decision so he can turn out for Delhi and at least get some sustained match practice?