No worries at the top

When India last played against Australia, the 20-year-old Sharma had played the biggest role, involved in three of the four Tests. Zaheer got injured after the first, Sehwag played the last two while Gambhir wasn’t even on the tour.

A lot has happened since that closely fought series in which India didn’t have a stable opening partnership or bowling combination. As the talking point of the upcoming Test is the future of the aging stars, Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly VVS Laxman are in the spotlight, while the four in-form players have been left alone.

While the Delhi players were checking in at the team hotel, the Chinnaswamy Stadium was preparing for a function in which Sachin Tendulkar was to lift the curtain on a wall consisting of 10,000 bricks, made in honour of local hero Rahul Dravid’s run tally in Test cricket.

On the wall was a silhouette of Dravid, with an electronic ticker at 10,246. The master of ceremonies remarked that Bangalore expected the ‘2’ to change to ‘3’ in the Test and former Test player Brijesh Patel talked about how the wall would intimidate the Australians when they entered the stadium on Tuesday.

‘Openers’ enter

Just after the function, as the media moved on, happy to have captured the story of the day, Zaheer, Ishant, Sehwag and Gambhir — the two sets of ‘openers’ — walked in. In the last India vs Australia series, India had opened the batting with Wasim Jaffer and Dravid in order to accommodate the then in-form Yuvraj Singh in the line-up.

The experiment continued in the second Test but the openers failed again and Sehwag had to be recalled. Then, in the next Test, Jaffer’s continued failure had given Irfan Pathan the stand-in opener’s slot. Despite trying everything, nothing worked and India’s best opening stand in that series was 57.

The opening bowling, too, suffered a huge setback due to Zaheer’s injury. With Sharma rising to the occasion, the crisis was averted but still there was always a suspense concerning the new-ball attack. This time, however, who will be he the batting and bowling starters is an open an shut case. While the ‘Fab Five’ deal with the spotlight and the pressure, India is secretly hoping that its new ‘Fearsome Four’ will be ready to strike.