A man who tries to please everybody, pleases none

After being sent on a leather hunt by the Pakistani batsmen, the Indian think tank is planning a huge surprise on Day 2. Rahul will be donning the gloves. Sarad Pawar will be setting the field from outside and Dhoni will be opening the bowling with Laxman. Chappell and co. have never failed to introduce a surprise element during their short tenure. I wouldn't be stunned.

Leadership is not science. It is behavior. A modest and soft Dravid can never make up for an arrogant and strong Ganguly. This is the inference from yesterday's team selection and the chaos that followed (atleast per all interpretations), captured in candid. One foreign tour (outside the subcontinent) will bring to fore, the true strength of our captain and his winning strategies. Pathan's cameo, Dhoni's powerplay, Kumble's flippers will not have any impact, where Ganguly's tacts can make significant difference between defeat and victory.

As ridiculous as it was to replace Ganguly with Jaffer, it seems even worse to reverse the pick by replacing Gambhir with Ganguly. Ganguly's selection will be singled out as the biggest blunder, if India goes on to lose this Test match without a significant contribution from him. Although Ganguly, playing as a batsman this time around, has done nothing wrong yet to be thus blamed.

If Ganguly had to play, India should have just gone in to the game, playing for a draw by picking both Jaffer and Ganguly at the cost of one spinner. While that surely would have shut the doors for a outright win, that would have been the best bet for a draw.

In any case, expecting Pathan and Agarkar to pick twenty wickets in five days is a bit too much of an ask, any day. India, therefore, was playing for a draw - atleast strengthening the batting would have made more sense towards that effort.