Seniors hold on to their posts

Truth is, the new selection panel led by Kiran More played it safe, going with the tried and tested, leaving Sridharan Sriram and Maharashtra opener Dheeraj Jadhav out despite a string of good scores.

And leaving the hardest questions for when the playing XI is picked. The main question being, who will open in the First Test? There are no clear answers yet; the squad has three openers in Sehwag, Chopra and Yuvraj and even Parthiv has opened recently.

Coach John Wright, for what it’s worth, hinted at retaining the ‘‘specialist combination of Sehwag-Chopra’’. That Yuvraj scored a timely hundred on Friday to remind the selectors aided his cause though his place in the XI is still doubtful — and it should be noted that his runs came off dispirited bowling. To that extent, Mohammad Kaif’s century for India A carried greater weight.

The most important point on the agenda for the selectors was the issue of Sachin Tendulkar’s fitness. His tennis elbow was the matter of much speculation all through the day as different theories floated around the playing arena.

One of the many had it that he was ‘‘very keen to play.’’ Yet minutes before the meeting one of the selectors indicated that Tendulkar was going to be rested.

It later transpired that, midway through the meeting, both Tendulkar and Indian team physio Andrew Leipus were consulted in Mumbai and it was felt the Mumbai batsman needed to ‘‘be with’’ the side. So the squad was expanded to 15 players, after a long time in a home Test series.

The merits of keeping Tendulkar in the squad, as one of the selectors pointed out after the meeting, were many. Chiefly, that he would remain under Leipus’s treatment — and that right uptil the eve of the first day, the Aussies would be kept guessing.

The Aussies have, however, shown how it’s done by announcing skipper and best batsman Ricky Ponting’s unavailability for the first two Tests. For the moment, the final call on Tendulkar’s fitness would be taken a day prior to the first Test though, as the player himself told The Indian Express on Thursday, he ‘‘did not want to rush into anything’’.

Another talking point at the two-hour long parley was the reserve bowling slots. The fight between Ashish Nehra and Ajit Agarkar was too close to call, and was decided by the former’s injury, while Murali Kartik was added for a ‘‘bit of variety’’.

Brief scores

India A: 302 all out and 297/5 decl. vs India Seniors: 213 all out and 387/5 (Yuvraj Singh 115, Virender Sehwag 146, Parthiv Patel 44 no; Dinesh Mongia 3/39)