Dravid dropped as flip-flop continues

In the middle of a second wind and after doing the hard yards in tough conditions,Rahul Dravid has been stopped in his tracks for the more comfortable home stretch....

In the middle of a second wind and after doing the hard yards in tough conditions,Rahul Dravid has been stopped in his tracks for the more comfortable home stretch.

Indias T20 World Championship disaster and the question mark over some young batsmens technique against short bowling had seen the national selectors draft the tried and tested Dravid with eyes on the Champions Trophy in South Africa. The 36-year-old did provide the solidity to the line-up that was expected from him,but in a sudden flip-flop,the national selectors dropped him on Thursday for the upcoming home series against Australia.

Ironically,Indian crickets Wall was used to temporarily plug a hole in the team. Neither his 10,000-plus ODI runs nor his scoring sequence of 14,47,39,76 and 4 since he wore the India blues after a gap of two years justified the decision taken by the selectors. It was a U-turn not totally unexpected from the selectors,who often switch between youth and experience on team-selection days. If Dravids inclusion was arguable in the first place,his exclusion after playing just five games was equally debatable.

Kohli included

Replacing him in the middle-order will be the 20-year-old Virat Kohli,who finally got named in the original squad after being the first-choice replacement for all injured players in recent times. Kohli flew in after Gautam Gambhir failed a fitness test in Sri Lanka and later during the Champions Trophy he replaced the injured Yuvraj Singh. His one notable inning during his in-and-out stint with the Indian team was a 79 in the inconsequential game against the West Indies after the team had already been knocked out in the Champions Trophy. There is no denying that Kohli has potential but experts wondered if there was a pressing hurry to include him in the squad.

Gambhir at No 3

The return of Virender Sehwag after rehabilitation means that he is likely to open the innings with Sachin Tendulkar. That also translates into Gautam Gambhir replacing Dravid at No 3. The others to follow are Yuvraj Singh,Suresh Raina and MS Dhoni. This is the kind of batting line-up that would give a selection headache to the team management on match eve. Dropping Dravid from the playing XI could have been an eventuality that triggered intrigue. But still,an embarrassment of riches can never to be deterrent to pick the right team or a deserving player.

The other decisions that the national selectors took today went on expected lines. There were efforts to solve Indias well-documented pace bowling problem with the drafting in of Munaf Patel and Sudeep Tyagi. With return of regular part-time spinner Yuvraj and acknowledgement of Ravindra Jadejas fine show in Irani and Challengers saw the ineffective all-rounders Yusuf Pathan and Abhisekh Nayar shown the door.

But all the other changes were pushed in the background when Dravids name was missing from the ODI squad.

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Squad: Mahendra Singh Dhoni c,Gautam Gambhir,Sachin Tendulkar,Virender Sehwag,Yuvraj Singh,Virat Kohli,Praveen Kumar,Amit Mishra,Ashish Nehra,Suresh Raina,Ishant Sharma,Ravindra Jadeja,Munaf Patel,Sudeep Tyagi