We are not the only ones having problem with our opening pair.
Still seeking a new Gavaskar](BBC SPORT | Cricket | Still seeking a new Gavaskar)
OPENERS SINCE 2000
Mannava Prasad (6 Tests, ave: 11.77)
Wasim Jaffer (7, 20.07)
SS Das (23, 34.89)
Sadagoppan Ramesh (19, 37.97)
Hemang Badani (4, 15.66)
Sameer Dighe (6, 15.66)
Deep Dasgupta (8, 28.66)
Sanjay Bangar (12, 29.37)
Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman have
both opened, but both are now settled
in the middle order
Virender Sehwag and Akash Chopra
became the 15th combination on Wednesday
Parthiv Patel opened in one innings of one Test
All those millions of youngsters on the streets of Delhi and Calcutta with dreams of becoming the next Sachin Tendulkar or Harbhajan Singh should consider this.
The best chance of getting into the Indian team is to practice the forward defensive shot religiously and thereby become a world class opener.
Since 2000, there have been 15 largely abortive attempts to discover an opening pair who can be relied on.
Whereas Australia can ink in Matthew Hayden and Justin Langer, England Michael Vaughan and Marcus Trescothick and South Africa Herschelle Gibbs and Graeme Smith, for India it is a lottery.
On Wednesday, Akash Chopra became the 13th opener attempted since the start of the Millennium and that is rather a lot really.
And even though Chopra did reasonably well, hitting 42 on his Test debut, the man at the other end is hopelessly ill-suited to opening the batting in Tests.
**Virender Sehwag is wonderfully talented but is an aggressive stroke-player and has a defensive technique so ropey against the new ball he normally abandons it altogether.
India have had to bow to the inevitable - they have called on opening batting legend Sunil Gavaskar to, well, look for a new Gavaskar. **
The selectors, now headed by former wicket-keeper Syed Kirmani, are said to want two specialist openers in place for the tour of Australia in December.
Provided Chopra gets one more decent score, perhaps a fifty, in the series against the Kiwis, he will presumably be handed one of the berths.
The other should perhaps go to Sadagoppan Ramesh. He hit 110 for India A in the game before the Test squad was announced and also has a Test pedigree.
Nineteen Tests have brought him a perfectly acceptable average of 37.97 and surely the selectors must regret dropping him two years ago.
Frankly, their thinking beggars belief. In his last Test, against Sri Lanka, he hit 46 and 55, but when India next played again they used Rahul Dravid at the top of the order for one Test only.
Since then, the planning has been chaotic.
Deep Dasgupta was given eight Tests, seven as opener, but never really came to the fore, despite a century against England.
Wasim Jaffer was handed a recall, but failed again.
And by the time India were being rolled over in New Zealand at the start of the year, the teenage wicket-keeper Parthiv Patel was even given an airing at the top of the order.
One of the exceptions to the rule, for a while at least, was Shiv Sundar Das. A diminutive right-hander, he played 23 consecutive Tests, opening in all of them.
Occasionally, he did well, but eventually the selectors decided he was not quite good enough.
And with an average of 34.89, he is another who sits on the scrap heap, for the time being at least.
One cannot help but feel slightly sorry for Das, however.
In an abbreviated 18-month Test career, he presumably woke up each morning not quite sure who he would be opening the batting with.
A remarkable seven different openers were paired with Das in that short time frame including two classic members of the where-are-they-now club, Hemang Badani and Sameer Dighe.
