Search the Internet          Tips

Opportunity to experiment

Opportunity sometimes comes in the guise of misfortune -- take as the latest exemplar of the axiom, the injury to vice-captain Rahul Dravid that rules him out of the second one-dayer against the West Indies.

Coach John Wright and skipper Sourav Ganguly are on record as saying that they want to use the 14 one-dayers (seven against the West Indies, seven against New Zealand) between now and February 2003, to tinker with team composition and figure out options and alternative plans for the World Cup.

Here's their chance. Firstly, Dravid going out means Parthiv Patel coming in -- and an opportunity for the captain and coach to assess how the baby-faced 'keeper will fare in one-dayers. Does India, come the World Cup, want to risk one of its most consistent batsmen by having Dravid do double duty, before and behind the stumps? Especially since it is easier for a part-time keeper to sustain injury when keeping on the hard, bouncy wickets of SA?

Equally importantly, coach John Wright, in course of a casual chat the other day, agreed with our gut take that Mohammad Kaif could well turn out to be India's Michael Bevan. Though it is early days yet in Kaif's case, some similarities are glaring -- Kaif, like Bevan, ranks among the fastest runners between wickets in international cricket, both are great finishers, both have the knack of conjuring runs out of nowhere, both have demonstrated ice cold nerves in crisis situations...

Kaif, what is more, has shown a knack for building an innings, by tapping the ball around and racing between wickets, early in his innings before exploding at the death. Makes you wonder -- is he batting too low at number seven, where he runs the risk of not having enough overs to play with (check out the first ODI vs the West Indies as an example)?

This is a good opportunity to find out -- by promoting Kaif to three or, if the team wishes to persist with the Agarkar experiment, then in the number four slot.