Indian captain Saurav Ganguly closed one door today, confirming that Rahul Dravid would keep wickets during the one-dayers. But he opened another by adding the name of Sadagoppan Ramesh to the list of contenders for opening slots in Test matches.The pre-season camp, which concluded here today, had seven openers on view — Das, Gambhir, Sriram, Jaffer, Bangar, Sehwag, Chopra. Ramesh wasn’t here, nor is he in any of the Challenger Trophy teams, but Ganguly said he hoped Ramesh would ‘‘make a comeback’’. Ramesh: The Lost and Found story TEST DEBUT: Chennai, Jan 1999, v Pakistan. Averaged 73 in the series against Wasim, Waqar and Shoaib. India believed opening problems were closed LOW NO. 1: Tour of Australia in 1999, with highest score of 28 in two Tests BOUNCE BACK: Significant 61 in series-deciding Chennai Test v Australia, 2001 LOW NO. 2: ‘Injured’ before tour of South Africa, 2001. May not have been entirely true BOUNCE BACK: Found form in last domestic season with 55 and 82 in Ranji semis v Delhi and 83 v Mumbai in the final. Though the name was first put to him by a reporter at the press conference today, Ganguly’s reply indicated it wasn’t a case of shooting in the dark. ‘‘Ramesh is obviously one person who has been doing well. Somehow, though, he hasn’t been in the selectors’ frame even for ‘A’ tours. I don’t know what the policy was for selection as I wasn’t present. John (Wright)’s spoken to him and so have I. He just has to be patient, for his chance would come too,’’ the captain said.In 2000-2001 Ramesh and Shiv Sunder Das seemed to have gelled as an opening combination and fared well even against world champions Australia in that historic home series. Then he got injured on the tours of Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka and the selectors began looking for options.There was some controversy when Ramesh declared himelf unfit for the tour of South Africa but was subsequently accused of feigning injury. The case history didn’t seem to faze Ganguly, however. ‘‘He (Ramesh) says he is fitter and better than before. Not that he was bad earlier, but it is just he seems more sure.’’While the door has opened for Ramesh, the seven chosen ones need not feel too threatened. Ganguly held out hope for them as well as he went on about how the ‘‘competition was hotting up’’ among the seven. Das, Wasim Jaffer and Gautam Gambhir were on the recent India ‘A’ tour of England ’ and their good show seemed to have impressed the skipper.
