Come October 25 and the Indian side will be back on the fields for a seven one day internationals series with the world champions. It will just be the beginning of a really packed and demanding session for the Indian cricket team. Last few tournaments have really shown a few weak links in the chain for this Indian outfit.

The failure of the young batsmen against short pitched bowling in the T-20 world cup opened the way for the selection of Rahul Dravid. The young guys like Rohit Sharma, Robin Utthappa, Suresh Raina and others promised a lot but just did not look that comfortable and capable filling in those big shoes of the three big guns. Onus was on these young players in the batting department and they should have responded in a more responsible way, but they could not. So the selectors had to intervene and were left with no other option but to call Dravid back, whom they felt, not good enough to be picked in the one day line up till then. But even Dravid has not looked very comfortable in the two series he played in Sri Lanka and in South Africa. Had he been successful to there, I doubt if that could have been a permanent solution to India’s woes.

The so called fresh legs and young players were roped in the side to bolster the weak fielding but fielding is still a big worry for the team. From the current team who played in the Champions trophy, only Virat Kohli and Suresh Raina can be considered as world class fielders and they too, are not very consistent. Yuvraj too, after suffering from many injuries has just been the shadow of his old self in the field. At least one can expect some ardour by this Young side. Without having good fielders who can save twenty-twenty five runs in a match, in modern day cricket, you can’t compete and win with regularity. Robin Singh, the fielding coach used to be a brilliant fielder but still after putting some really hard efforts somehow he finds himself on the wrong side when it comes to the fielding of this current Indian outfit.

The selection of the side also raises a few eye brows quite correctly. What makes sense to have Dinesh Karthik in the side when he is not going to keep wickets? Is he such a prolific batsman that he can be taken in the side only because of his batting capability? Don’t we have enough good batsmen in India who can be included in the side? Why Virat Kohli, a middle order batsman, was sent to Sri Lanka as a replacement of an opener Gautam Gambhir? Did the selectors not know that Virat was a middle order batsman and because of the injury to Gambhir the vacant slot in the team is right at the top. If we look at the domestic season then we find Badrinath, Md. Kaif, Cheteshwar Pujara, in the middle order, and Robin Utthappa, Shikhar Dhawan, at the top of the order, making so many runs but only to be consistently overlooked.

Team is in the quest of the number one slot in the ICC ODI rankings. But do we have team, good enough to perform consistently, to stay at the top for long time like the Australians? Do these ratings show the actual picture? To me the answer to both of the questions is a big No. If you look at the performance of the Indian team in the last couple of years, which has contributed immensely in putting India ahead of other teams for the number one race in the ICC ratings, then you would get the reason of this No. In the last couple of years India have won a number of bilateral series and a couple of tri-nation series but India have not won even a single series or big event featuring more than three teams. So it suggests that we were number one for a while and are in the hunt of number one slot only because of these bilateral series wins.

We have to play a few more bilateral series in the coming months and if we perform well in those then there is a big chance that we might be ranked number one again. But is this what, as a player, as a cricket lover one looks for? Or one looks for being the Best team out there in the game. A team may become number one because of series of bilateral series victories but they can’t become the best team until they beat every side which comes between them and the cup to lift the trophy. This normally happens in the big ICC events such as Champions trophy, World cup etc. That is why Australia is supposed to be the best team in the world and certainly they have got the records to speak for them too. Three consecutive World Cups and now second Champions Trophy on the trot tells the story of the Australian dominance in the cricket field. Whether they are ranked number one or not they are certainly the biggest scare for any team because they are Best. We should look to become the Best team rather than being the number one team and for that we will have to win a few big events besides winning mini tournaments. A win in a big event with some good mini events win will be just like the icing on the cake.

The selection committee, led by Srikkanth, has a tough job in their hands in coming months. A packed schedule is waiting for the Indian team and they really need to solve these problems as early as possible. World Cup 2011 and T-20 World Cup 2010 are not far away and the selectors need to put their thinking caps on and have to take some wise decisions if we want to do well in these events.