I love cricket and I love the Indian Cricket team. I love every Indian cricket team even if does not have my favorite players. I loved the Indian team during the 2003 season. Maybe it would have been nice to have Anil Kumble in place of the 7th batsman Ganguly persisted with. As a wicket- keeper if we had M.S. Dhoni it would have been perfect. My favorite Test Indian team consisting of players I have seen play would be
1) V. Sehwag
2) G.Gambhir
3) R.Dravid
4)S.Tendulkar
5)M.Azhauddin
6)V.V.S. Laxman
7)M.S.Dhoni
8)J.Srinath
9)H.Singh
10)Z.Khan
11)A.Kumble
12)S.Ganguly
13)V.Prasad
That would be my choice of players whom I have seen from 1996 world-cup. Now I know I would feel miserable to have Ganguly be a substitute but then how does one drop the rest.
V.Sehwag- His coming to the opening position was Ganguly's greatest contribution to Indian cricket. Sehwag's greatness has not just been in the fact that he would give the team a good start and a blazing start but also you could bank on him irrespective of the track. He has played well at Melbourne, Chennai,Gall, Bloemfentain, Trent-Bridge,Multan. His greatest innings in Tests would surely be the Chennai test against England in 2008 where he scored a quick-fire 82 to help India chase an improbable 387 on the last day. Not too far would be the 293 he scored against Sri-Lanka at Mumbai in 2009. That was an innings of pure class and power and confidence. He hit Muralitharan with so much ease that Muralitharan was made to look average. Amazingly when after the 2007 world-cup when he was dropped he hadn't performed really badly. Yet on India's tour to Australia in 2007 he was selected with not many strong performances and what a difference did he make to the team his 151 in the final test was as much a master class as any. His greatness lies in the fact that in the entire history of Test Cricket there has'nt been any opening batsman as consistent and destructive, well atleast not in Indian Cricket. He also made the common belief that technique was the only thing an opening batsman needed, not that he lacks it as shown amazingly in the 201 against Sri Lanka, but really what is needed in the confidence to play.
G.Gambhir- He is still a rising star. Unlike the other Indian Greats in the team he still has a lot to prove. But really since his coming India at least now has a fixed opening pair. There have been so many before him and Sehwag...Sidhu and Prabhakar, Sidhu and Laxman, Sehwag and Akash Chopra, Sehwag and Bangar, Jaffar and Karthick, Jaffar and S.S.Das, S.S. Das and S.Ramesh and the list is long with a few combinations interchanging. What Gambhir has got is that he is a perfect foil to Shewag's attack. He has a lot more technique and a lot of patience as shown during his match saving innings of 137 at Napier. It took him a long time to settle into his groove. His temprament was his problem initially where his hotheadedness would let him down. I think the 2007 20-20 world cup was the turning point for him and then his performance against Australia an innings of 206 took him into the league. But till date his best innings in tests has been the innings at Napier. India were following on and he came out and batted for 5 sessions to save India the test and then his 167 at Wellington helped India win the series.
Rahul Dravid- To me Rahul Dravid is God. He was never as talented as Sachin but he made a league for himself. His test debut was one of his very good innings but was made sour when he edged Chris Lewis for 95. But that was a good trailer to what was to be a great career. He then in the year 1997 came up with a lot of scores in the 80's and the 90's. He was called a chocker near 100. Then he broke his 100 draught with a wonderful 148 against S. Africa. An innings I rememver at the end of which I think it was Hansie Cronje came and patted at his back. Dravid was one of the best pullers in the Indian team but his best shot was that lean to a cover drive where he has a long stride meeting the ball at the center of the bat. The most stylish shot of his is the cut. The bat coming so perfectly and the body weight transferred front and then back on one leg all most like a warrior cutting the enemy down. Later on he also developed a beautiful late cut. A shot perfectly employed against Muriltharan. His career started to peak with the innings of 180 against Australia at Kolkata. Till then he was struggling to play Warne on the leg side. The drive between mid-wicket and mid-on was where Warne was testing him the test at Mumbai. But here he started to play Warne amazingly by coming down and place the ball between mid-wicket and mid-on with confidence. This innings was full of grit and determination with almost the whole country sweating along with him. He proved his class with the fact that even though he was demoted to number 6 losing his number 3 position to Laxman, by just letting his bat do the talking.Then came the his best phase 3 centuries in England starting at Trent-Bridge where the early morning movement was perfectly negated by the master. He left the balls outside the off-stump cut,drove,punched and pulled the ball with class. He then played a master class innings at the Adelaide Ovel. An innings of 233 which was importent in setting up the match but his innings of 72 not-out was the more important innings which helped India win the test. This was Indian Crickets Golden age. Australia had scored 500 plus runs but the team believed that it could run them close and on taking the lead they even believed they could win and that was what Dravid got to the Indian team along with Ganguly, Sachin and Laxman. But to me Dravid best innings was at Sabina Park,West Indies. Only he was the batsman who seemed a class apart. In both the innings he scored half centuries but each of them were almost like double hundreds on a track that was uneven and very difficult to play on. His innings of 68 in the second innings was the most out-standing one played by any. These two innings helped India beat West-Indies on their home turf after 35 years. He played a captains knock to perfection. He then lead India to a win over the English, their first series win after 1986. Dravid also played a very important role at Kolkata again where he scored centuries in both the innings to help India over come a sticky Pakistani team. To me he is the greatest player of all time and what makes him even greater is his humility and passion. Even today when he comes out to bat no matter how slow he plays his every ball played is a lesson. People say he bats slow but his batting is what encircles the greatness of test cricket. A test of not just skill and ability but also a test of character and responsibility. After a long time could India find someone who could share the burden of the Indian public long with the great Sachin Tendulkar.
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