When S Ramesh walked out with Saurav Ganguly to open the Indian innings against Sri Lanka at Pune on Tuesday, it provided the first instance of a left-handed opening pair for India in Limited Overs International cricket. Never before have two left-handed batsmen opened an innings for India. In fact, Ramesh is only the fourth left-handed batsman to open for India, the others being WV Raman, Vinod Kambli and of course, Ramesh's partner Ganguly.

The closest India came to opening with two left handers was during the Wills Trophy triangular tournament, also involving Pakistan and Sri Lanka at Sharjah in October 1991. WV Raman opened the batting with Navjot Sidhu and was dismissed for a second ball duck against the West Indies: in the next match against Pakistan, India opened with a brand new pair - Vinod Kambli giving company to Ravi Shastri.

Apart from this, right handers have dominated the opening slot for India throughout their LOI history; although Pakistan among many others have had a lot of success with Saeed Anwar and Aamir Sohail.

Contributed by: Atul Kahate (AKahate@yahoo.com)