All the best - team India !!

Our men in blue have just set foot on old blighty (the cold forbidding and rainy shores of England) and captain Mahendar Singh Dhoni has stirred a virtual hornet's nest with his steadfast refusal to answer any and every question pertaining to the spot and match fixing imbroglio in the just concluded IPL season 6; I for one am not too perturbed by Dhoni's refusal to answer all such questions but am more concerned with team India's chances in the last edition of the Champion's Trophy........

The Indian team did not exactly cover itself in glory when it was in England the last time around, it lost the test series by a 4-0 margin and was also completely blanked out in the ODI series that followed, the Champion's Trophy offers them a chance to redeem themselves and set the record straight, but the million dollar question is whether or not team India has the wherewithal to do well in alien conditions.......

Let's take a closer look at the fifteen men chosen by the five supposedly wise men of Indian cricket (the selectors) and minutely examine whether or not they are capable of annexing a trophy that team India has not won till date; yes team India did share the trophy with the Lankan lions way back in 2002 but has never won the trophy all on it's own........

Shikhar Dhawan and Murali Vijay are the two openers hand picked by the selectors and they have been saddled with the onerous responsibility of getting the team off to reasonable starts every time, yes the firm of Messrs Dhawan and Vijay did excel against the Aussies during the course of the test series, but they are going to be playing in alien conditions where the ball with both swing and seam prodigiously and to exacerbate matters, Vijay did not exactly cover himself in glory during the recently concluded IPL season 6.........

Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma do certainly do be the best of the lot and the two of them did reasonably well in the recently concluded IPL season 6, they do have both the technique as well as the acumen to acquit themselves creditably and the Indian batting effort will mostly depend on the success or failure of these two gentlemen.......

Suresh Raina may well struggle against the moving ball as he has this irritating tendency to square himself up and open his right shoulder time and again or put simply does tend to struggle against the ball moving against him, but Rain will have to overcome his shortcomings and guide the Indian total to seemingly impregnable areas in conjunction with skipper Dhoni as batting has always been team India's forte.......

Dinesh Karthik will only get a look in if any of the afore/above mentioned batsmen suffer from an injury or then woefully fail to get off the blocks in three-four innings; the selectors certainly missed a trick by not picking Gautam Gambhir and Cheteshwar Pujara, Gambhir would have proved to be the ideal foil to a rampaging Dhawan and Pujara is simply the best technically equipped batsman on the Indian scene by far........

The all rounders slot will be a toss up between Messrs Ravindra Jadeja and Irfan Pathan, both of them are primarily batting all rounders and their bowling is only the proverbial icing on the cake, though in Jadeja's case one would be most inclined to say that his bowling rather than his batting and skipper Dhoni's deep rooted faith in his talents have guaranteed him a place in the Indian ODI team thus far.........

Irfan Pathan has proved to be somewhat of an enigma, he started his international career on a brilliant or then sublime note and was even touted as the next Kapil Dev for sometime, he mysteriously went off the boil and even contrived to lose the swing that made him the bowler he was, he has been successful in making some sort of a comeback but the prodigious swing that he possessed during his earlier stint is still conspicuous by it's absence........

Umesh Yadav, Ishant Sharma, Ravichandran Ashwin and Vinay Kumar should make up the quartet of bowlers who complete and give concrete form to the Indian playing XI, off these Umesh Kumar is the only bowler capable of clocking consistent speeds in excess of 140 kms per hour and even swinging the white cherry at these speeds, the only problem being that he is coming back from a long injury lay off and a less than sterling IPL season 6 where he was taken for plenty of runs at most times......

Ishant Sharma did certainly have his moments during the IPL but these were scattered randomly and did not make for a consistent pattern, Ishant has been around for a long time and again did start off his international career splendidly, but one really wonders whether he has the stuff to be the Indian pace bowling spearhead in Zaheer Khan's absence between the ears.......

Vinay Kumar was by far the best Indian medium pacer on view during the IPL and should certainly acquit himself well to these bowling friendly conditions, as for Ashwin one cannot see him getting too much turn out of the English pitches, but he should certainly succeed in keeping the runs down and chipping in with the odd wicket when most needed........

Team India should certainly cross the first hurdle and get into the second round or super sixes in my humble opinion and from thereon, their determination and will to win in inhospitable and seemingly alien conditions will surely be put to the ultimate test.......

Anyway, here's wishing the men in blue all the very best.........