A depleted India begins its first home series after being crowned as World Champions in 2 days time against England, the team which they failed to get past single time this entire year. The World Cup game was a tie and then in England there was one more tie and one wash out and then there were 3 losses. The similarity in the England series and this series is that the core players who won India the world cup 6 months back are still out injured and the bowling too looks thin in absence of four first choice bowlers. The game is in Hyderabad, the same venue where England made 219 and 367 in the tour games and where English bowlers enjoyed a lot of success.
India are without the services of Tendulkar, Sehwag, Yuvraj in batting department and there is no Ishant Sharma, Munfa Patel and Zaheer Khan in bowling. There are replacements, there are question marks over those replacements. Over the quality and of course on the nature of the selection for those replacements.
Injuries, fatigue and too much of cricket is an issue that still exists for India. The best example is MS Dhoni. He has been playing non stop cricket for over a year now. The only gap came in the ODI series vs NZ last year and then in the West Indies series this year just after World cup (or after IPL). In between he has played SA series, the World Cup, the IPL, West Indies tests, full England tour and league phase of CLT20. He just earned 10 days of break since his franchisee failed to get past the league stage. Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli are other lads who have been playing cricket continously for most part of the year. They have played all LOIs in last year. They also fulfilled their IPL obligations for their franchisees.
How much fresh and rejuvenated they would feel in a supposedly grudge series, is anybody's guess.
Gautam Gambhir has had his stints with the injuries -- shoulder in IPL saw him miss West Indies tour, then a concussion in England tour saw him miss ODIs and then once he recovered, he had to lead KKR in CLT20 and then one of the Challenger teams. It seems he is going to miss the final of that tourney and probably he has joined the Indian team.
So the issues that bogged India down in England still exist and there has been no steps sadly from team management and the board. Duncan Fletcher seems to have been disappeared totally. No one remembers if he is actually the coach of Indian team. Since he has taken over, the fortunes of the team have dipped drastically. One wonders whether he is assertive enough to stress the need for rest, injury management and player management. It may be too early to judge him, but in a cricket frenzy country like India it would be very good for him to get his act and experience together to see the team he coaches out of the rut. Else the cruel network of fans and media shall be gunning for his head. He better remember the fate of Greg Chappell in 2007.
There is no Harbhajan Singh, Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra in the ODIs. The spin department would be with Chennai's R Ashvin, debutant Rahul Sharma and of course much abused and maligned Ravinder Jadeja. The pace bowlers read S Arvind, Vinay Kumar, Praveen Kumar, Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav. Its an insult to genuine allrounders to label the likes of Jadeja -- an allrounder. So the probable XI imo looks something like this:
1. Gambhir
2. Rahane
3. Kohli
4. Raina
5. Dhoni
6. Tiwary
7. Jadeja / Patel
8. Praveen
9. Sharma
10. Ashvin
11. Aaron / Vinay
5 pace bowlers on docile flat Indian wickets is another question mark over the wisdom of selectors. Just 2 specialist spinners with no option for the 3rd specialist one is another ? mark. The only bold move selectors made was to drop Harbhajan rather than rest him. Perhaps him winning the CLT20 for MI and taking his challenger team to the final might see him coming back for 3rd ODI ownwards.
But if India lose this series too at home, then more than the players' performance, it would be the blame to be put on selectors for their poor team selection and BCCI for their injury mismanagement.
For record purposes India has not lost an ODI series to England in more than 27 years. They won 5-0 in 2008, 5-1 in 2006, drew 3-3 in 2001 and 1993. And also they have not lost the home ODI series in last 4 years since losing 2-4 to Australia in 2007 which was Dravid's last home ODI series.
