Bangalore Test, Day 1, Lunch
Wednesday, December 19, 2001

The composition of the Indian team was the first thing that caught the eye. It was interesting to note that before the match, Sourav Ganguly and John Wright said that the selectors would decide the final eleven. In an ideal situation, that should be the team management's decision. But perhaps, the choices to be made were so difficult that it was left to the selectors.

Eventually, India went into the game with three spinners. They could have chosen to go with three spinners and two medium-pacers with one of the batsmen dropping out. As it is, we have a specialist batsman coming in at number seven. I think that stems from Ganguly's reluctance to play five bowlers. Whenever that has happened under his captaincy, one of the bowlers has ended up being underbowled. Perhaps, the selectors paid heed to the captain's wishes and settled for four bowlers.

England won an important toss this morning, on a newly laid wicket. The pitch has come in for its fair share of attention. Usually, when they re-lay a pitch, they just dig it up and put the same soil back. That's not been the case here and the new track will be quite different from anything we've seen in Bangalore before. The groundsman told me that there is a higher clay content and it won't be as dusty and powdery as pitches here were in the past. Uneven bounce will also come into play later in the game.

England will be fairly happy with their morning's work. There was no early collapse and not too many mishaps either. Batting first, in gloomy conditions, it was important that they started off on the right note.

Sanjay Manjrekar, mainstay of the Indian batting in the late '80s and early '90s, was talking to Dileep Premachandran.

More from Manjrekar
2nd Test, Day 5, Close: Well done Sourav

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