It's an interesting one Aussie.
1. Vinoo Mankad was a fine bowler and gives more stability to the team. However, I want the best bowlers selected to give us the best chance to take 20 wickets.
2. I don't understand you going on about how we shouldn't expect to win abroad. India has a history of losing abroad but since Ganguly became captain, we had a period when we did well overseas. We have many players from that time and some other all time greats in the team. There is no reason we may not win tests abroad with an attack of Zaheer, Srinath and Kapil.
3. In Indian conditions, we can replace a pacer with a spinner, maybe even Vinoo. Again, I would prefer Bedi instead of Vinoo as Bedi in India was amazing.
1. I don't see how Mankad makes the chances of this hypothetical team taking 20 wickets weaker - especially in home conditions. Bedi of course is the slightly better left-arm spinner - but I would think Mankad's all-round package makes him a must pick.
His versatility as batsman is key too because while i find it amusing and illogical that people would pick Sehwag to open in a IND ATXI alongside Gavaskar, when he would clearly be a walking wicket vs the legendary new-ball bowlers based on his career struggled vs quality pace - Mankad's ability to open comes in very handy.
Of course there is the option of opening with Dravid, replacing Hazare with Vengskar so he could bat @ # 3 and dropping Mankad down to # 6.
2. Ha its funny how IND supporters remember and over-exaggerate IND record abroad under Ganguly.
In the context of INDs test history all Ganguly era and later under Dhoni/Kumble did was move India from being lions at home and great *****cats abroad - to being respectable tourist. Those 8 years don't over-ride more than 50 years of struggles overseas, which is key judgement point in this ATXI analysis.
IND starting winning more individual tests abroad, but they did not do anything dramatic by Asian team and start dominating away from home winning many test series. You don't get points in ICC ranking system - even though its faulty for winning test matches.
AUS/ENG fans would consider IND away from home record during that period poor considering their historical standards.
3. Kapil/Zaheer/Srinath attack bowling together today would be as good as anything going around. However in comparison to other ATXI pace attacks of the 8 nations, they would be no better than Sri Lanka, so that is a potential Achilles heel for them being being unable to always take 20 wickets especially overseas - because the trio are not ATG quicks and bowling to some legendary ATG batsmen of WI/AUS/SA/ENG/PAK means inevitably they would come out 2nd best more often than not.
