What do Jaffer and Mazumdar need to do to make their place in the national side? Fake their age? Bribe the selectors? These two worked for some other players in the past (until one got caught and the BCCI waged legal war against him). The number of chances Vijay got is quite high. Then count the number of chances Jaffer got- and he ran rings around Vijay in this game. Hang on, even Rahane outperformed Vijay against a better attack, but just short of a hundred, coming in more or less as an opener. While Dhawan was picked largely keeping in mind that he'll partner Sehwag and the combination will work, a Jaffer-Rahane opening combination would be a lot better than what we'll see now.
There's no way Ojha or Ashwin should be playing Test cricket at present. Both were pee-poor in the last few months. While Ashwin's horror series at home seems to have made him a lot less of a prospect, Ojha, way behind the English spinners, was lucky a few batsmen threw their wickets away to him- but not Sachin, who despatched him to the ropes or stands with impunity. And people think Sachin should be dropped and Ojha is a certainty. Ranji spin leader Shahbaz Nadeem should be playing instead of both, and outside of that, Amit Mishra was the best of the worst, while Gujarat's Rakesh Dhurv had one good season.
It's good to see Bhuv Kumar in the mix, but not so good in a four-man bowling attack- but the young man can also score plenty of runs. They should have, however, picked Pankaj Singh, who has performed well in three consecutive seasons, often against better teams. He bowls a little faster than Ishant does at present, is fitter, and in better form. They could also have taken a risk with Ishwar Pandey, running hot until he ran into a flat deck. To sum it up, while it is good to see that they've axed Gambhir for non-performance, they should have dropped Ashwin and Ojha too and picked up more performers from Ranji and Irani matches.