Chennai: Will Zaheer Khan be in the Test squad to South Africa is the million dollar question. The injured quick is back in the reckoning on coming back from injury and an off season spent in France training like tri-athletes to drop weight and get super fit.
While Indian batting is seen to be in great health after Sachin Tendulkar's 199th and 200th Test match, the future looks rosy enough with an array of young batsmen in form and the run machine ticking over well enough to put India back at no. 2 in Test rankings. It is the bowling that will determine the course of the series between the two top-ranked teams in South Africa.
Zaheer will add teeth to the Test bowling if he can reproduce anywhere near his old form. Insiders aver that when it comes to staging comebacks it is entirely up to the team management (read MS Dhoni).
The selectors are also inclined to go with the flow and leave it to team management to decide on allowing any comebacks since they do not want to be seen tinkering with team harmony that Dhoni has built.
Mohammed Shami has just come into the Test team and is already being considered capable of running through the tail with his indippers and deep reverse swingers. Bhuvaneshwar Kumar is his natural partner with the new ball.
A third seamer is a must on tours in Tests to be played on sporting wickets. The likes of Ishant Sharma and Jaidev Unadkat may be in the reckoning for seamer spots in the Test squad (to be picked over the weekend during the Vizag ODI against the West Indies). But none of them is in the Zaheer Khan class when it comes to consistent Test performance.
Analysts say there would always be a place for a fit Zaheer in a three-man seam attack. The seamer himself may have been wary of playing the two Tests against the West Indies without fully testing his fitness in the Ranji Trophy. But now that he has gone through a few first class games he may be in a position to stake a claim for a Test place.
Apart from Shami and Kumar, those most in contention for seamers' spots are Umesh Yadav, Jaydev Unadkat, Mohit Sharma, Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan. Zaheer's fate will be known only when the selectors meet. It will be interesting to see how seriously India take the series against South Africa in the post-Sachin Tendulkar era.
The batting falls in place with Shikhar Dhawan, M. Vijay, Cheteshwar Pujara, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhoni and R. Ashwin being virtually automatic choices as batsmen or allrounders for the top eight places. Who occupies the three slots for seamers in the playing XI will be important from the perspective of whether India can win a series again against South Africa, the top rated Test side in ICC rankings.
