Good point.
However Kumble can be erased from that considering he could never be expected to perform anything more than what Mishy is doing now.
As for Dravid, I don't think he'll be dropped, those are huge boots to fill. So he will go to domestic, and get a century or two and come back primed for the series.
Only worry is who will do in for Ganguly. Ideally would want a southpaw at that number. And Yuvraj is nowhere near Ganguly despite the latter's obvious problems.
Rather than just make a replacement man for man, they need to look at what's missing in the Indian team. Their fielding has been patchy, and the failure of the Aussies in the same is no excuse. They seem to carry at least one liability on the field and most batting sides are crafty enough to spot it and score bonus runs. What's even more disturbing is that some of their better fielders are also error-prone. We've seen good displays of fielding from the likes of Ishant, RP Singh, Irfan and Gambhir, but they've also floored catches at times, or letting through extra singles and boundaries. Throwing on the stumps is another area of concern. There's not much to do to change the team, but the methods and possibly the support staff need to be changed.
Add to that the lack of a genuine all-rounder. When they've played six batsmen and four bowlers on a batting-friendly pitch, their bowling attack, not mediocre by any means, has been found wanting- primarily because it's under-manned. Conversely, in the few matches where the Indians have played five bowlers, they had to have Irfan Pathan, then struggling to take wickets, or else they had a long tail. This is a matter that needs to be addressed more than replacements for the Fab Four, as even as the Fab Four played so much together, the absence of a replacement for Kapil Dev and Prabhakar still weakened the team.
While everyone's over the moon (the moon now holds something special for India) over Zaheer and Ishant, let's not forget how much hope we had from the likes of Irfan, Balaji, Sreesanth and RP Singh. Now the task is to maintain these two and also get back some of the old pacers (especially Irfan) back in the fold, to keep the attack strong.
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