Go smell the coffee, Rahul!

Seriously, guys, I have often wondered, more than once, if I missed my true calling by not becoming a sports journalist. My first article in journalism was a profile of the stylish New Zealand batsman Martin Crowe, just before the 1987 World Cup of cricket.

There was both opportunity and more-than-occasional desire to write more on one of my more favourite subjects, but I chose not to do anything with those opportunities. There is a lot going for a career spent chasing cricket stories and watching interesting matches all over the cricketing globe. A career that could so easily have been, but, alas, never was!

On the other hand, given the passions that the game rouses in me, it is just as well that I didn't go onto become a cricket scribe. Or else, the most frequently mentioned medical event of this blogspace-- the cardiac arrest of yours truely that happened last year -- would pehaps have happened a tad earlier.

It is just not the cricketing actions of the Boys in Blue that cause such turmoil in my heart, though it must be said that the side's oft-demonstrated ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of near-certain victory does play havoc with one's cardiovascular system and would perhaps even be behind the odd ulcer that might be insidiously growing inside me.

Methinks the more serious damage to my health, over the years, has definitely been caused by the way the game is run (or not) in this country. Baffling team selections, inexplicable persistence with some players while the more deserving were cast aside, often impacted on my bloodstream with serious consequence.

As I sit to pen this, not everything feels as it should inside me, and my heart can be caught casting an accusatory glance at the TV set, where India has just bashed the living daylights out of Test cricket's favourite punching bag, Bangladesh.

You would think my latest lament about how things are in Indian cricket is rather poorly timed, coming as it does after the somewhat spectacular performance by the B-in-B (only the first instance in the history of Test cricket where the top four batsmen have gone on to score hundreds) in what is surely a revenge series if there ever was one.

I just can't help but feel a great opportunity to rebuild has been lost. After the much-publicised and not-entirely-unexpected (that is, if you go strictly by cricketing form and not hype) early exit from theWorld Cup, the Bangladesh tour provided an ideal opportunity to put the Indian cricket house in order.

Indian skipper Rahul Dravid's decision to go in with five specialist bowlers, and thereby restricting the number of specialist batsmen to five, has evidently worked. But the success of this strategy or for that matter Tendulkar's 36th and 37th Test hundreds or Zaheer Khan's first five wicket haul in four years has to be seen in proper perspective. That these successes have been achieved against a side that has notched just a solitary Test win in 44 matches.

Given the fact that far more sterner test lies in wait, playing England in England and then hosting Pakistan, the five-batsmen strategy makes little sense.It is at best a temporary strategy that can only be tried against a weak side like Bangladesh. I can't imagine India playing in Lord's with just five specialist batsmen plus Dhoni, or for that matter, taking the field against Pakistan without six specialist batsmen.

Even the best cricket team inthe world, Australia plays with six specialist batsmen, this despite the redoubtable Adam Gilchrist at the number seven spot. As Steve Waugh once said, Gilchrist would perhaps be as effective at the number six slot, but the sight of him walking in at number seven often breaks the bowling side's morale.

Ditto for Clive Lloyd's strategy of the four-man pace attack. You would think Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall, between them, would dsmantle most batting sides, but Lloyd always wanted the extra firepower of the big bird Joel Garner, in addition to Roberts, Holding and Marshall. Chetan Chauhan, long time opening partner of Sunil Gavaskar, once told me, after one has faced a hostile opening spell from Roberts and Holding, then handled the liquid pace of Marshall, one of the most discouraging and hearbreaking sights for a batsman was to see the big Joel Garner loosening up at deep fine leg, preparing to bowl.

More recently, Sourav Ganguly's decision to use Dravid as a wicket keeper in one-dayers allowed India to go in with seven batsmen. Not many bowlers in the world enjoy the prospect of bowling against a side where the redoubtable Dravid comes in as the seventh batsman. After that famous 326-run-chase at Lord's in 2003, the then English captain Nasser Hussain said : "This Indian side is packed with batsmen, they just keep coming at you."

That is the whole idea. To keep coming at you. Ask the Australians and they would tell you, it intimidates most opposition on most days.

Instead, India opts for the extra cushion of a fifth specialist bowler against Bangladesh. What should be a matter of serious concern for India is if five bowlers are needed to bowl out Bangladesh, how are four expected to deliver the goods against far better batting line-ups? Logically, wouldn't it be a better idea to practice taking 20 wickets with four spcialist bowlers against Bangladesh, than one fine day asking the bowlers to do the same against England, South Africa or Australia?

Even more worryingly, Dravid's much-touted five-batsman strategy ensures one of India's finest Test batsmen VVS Laxman remains benched, and devoid of crucial match practice before the more important business against England begins. Also one gets the feeling, more than just strategic thinking was behind Laxman being dropped (unlike a Tendulkar or a Ganguly, he doesn't even get to hide behind the fig leaf of being "rested") from the side against Bangladesh.

A cricket board that has perfected the art of taking symbolic stands rather than taking any concrete measures, had earlier "rested" the senior pros Tendulkar and Ganguly in the one-dayers against Bangladesh. Though it was oficially denied, the move was seen by many as a slap on the wrists of the duo who allgedly didn't pull their weight in the disastrous World Cup campaign.

As Greg Chapell quit and Dravid appeared unwilling to lead the side, the Indian cricket board made a characteristically symbolic gesture of mollifying an angry Dravid by making Tendulkar and Ganguly sit out the Bangladesh one-dayers.

Howver, both had to be restored to the Test side quickly to dispell any talk of a witch hunt. As the Indian criket board continued to play footsie with the game, the easiest way to restore status quo was to keep Laxman out of the side, though it can be argued even in a five-batsman Test team, the very very stylish Hyderbadi commands a place on the basis of his past performance. I hope no one seriously thinks that despite his promise and pluck, Dinesh Kartik deserves a place in the side ahead of Laxman.

Laxman's problem is his ability to negotiate boardroom politics doesn't quite match his exquisite onside play. Thus, forever the first batsman to be axed out of a one-day side, he finds it increasingly difficult to make it to the Test eleven.

Remember Jawagal Srniath?

The most successful quick bowler in Indian cricket after Kapil Dev. The fellow would have picked up 100or even perhaps 150 more Test wickets had he played more often for India when he was younger and a yard or two quicker. Instead Srinath cooled his heels in the sidelines, as the once great Kapil Dev lumbered onto his Test record haul.

Some cricketers are more expendable than others. Srinath was one of them, so is Laxman.

Equally baffling as Laxman's absence from the Test side are a few other selections. Virender Sehwag, in the midst of batting horrors, finds a place in the one-day side against Bangladesh, but not in the Test team. Even a cursory glance at his record would tell you, Sehwag has been a world class prformer in Test matches, while his one-day batting, though occasionally explosive, has seldom been consistent. Yet after really one poor Test series against South Africa, he is out of the Test side, but continues to retain his place as an opener in one-dayers, despite the extended run of failures.

The story gets curiouser with Sourav Ganguly, whose career record is exactly opposite of Sehwag's. However, the man with over 10,000 one-day runs and India's man of the series against Sri Lanka in the last one day series before the World Cup and India's highest run-getter in theWorld Cup, is rested in one-dayers, and then waltzes into the Indian Test team ahead of the likes of VVS Laxman and India's best young middle order hope, Yuvraj Singh.

First the recently departed (that is, from Indian cricket) Greg Chapell spoke about "the process". Now it is the Indian captain Rahul Dravid's favourite buzz word. I am trying so very hard here to understand "the process" that allows for such decisions which fly in the face of common cricketing logic. If there is a method, oops, sorrryyy, a process, behind this madness, can someone care to elaborate?

Oh the wise Indian captain, we, the blue billion, wait in delicious suspense.