Pepsi now airs a commercial in India that has a construction engineer saying, "We're not building any hopes", with a giant World Cup-shaped structure in the background. Now, advertising has about as much to do with the truth as a philanderer has to do with fidelity, but that rare moment of candour – though meant to be ironical – should be heeded by hard-core Indian fans. Hope is a good thing, but it can also blind you to painful realities. The reality with this Indian team is that the bowlers, with two exceptions, are inept.

Such weaknesses can be camouflaged in one-day cricket, but not in Tests where you actually need to bowl teams out. One-day cricket is like soft lighting in that it can hide many a blemish and actually make you look good. In harsh Test cricket light though, each line, wrinkle and scar is open to scrutiny.

The strobe lights in Test cricket don't flatter Ashish Nehra and Ajit Agarkar. Each time they bowl alongside Zaheer Khan, you can't help but wonder how quickly the Wheel of Fortune has turned full circle.

There was a time when Agarkar was expected to take over from Javagal Srinath as India's quick bowling spearhead, while Nehra was seen by some cock-eyed optimists as the desi answer to some fella called Wasim Akram. By contrast, Zaheer, after a promising start to his Test career, was feeling the chill of several cold shoulders as recently as 12 months ago.

If you plot their career graphs, you'll see how Zaheer – after a stutter or two – has improved steadily while the other two have gone downhill as fast as the Swiss bobsleigh team.

Their bowling averages, instead of coming down like Zaheer's, have bloated as steadily as a man on a diet of ten Carlsbergs and greasy chips. Averages of 40 (Nehra) and 46 (Agarkar) are excellent if you're an opening batsman. For supposed new ball bowlers though, they're a flipping disgrace.

What has Nehra done to justify his almost-continuous inclusion in the side? Yes, he bowls the odd unplayable delivery but what's so special about that? It's part of the job profile for any opening bowler.

As a quick bowler, you need either raw pace (Jason Gillespie, Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee, Shane Bond) or tremendous accuracy (Glenn McGrath, Shaun Pollock). Some, like Gillespie, combine both to devastating effect. Nehra and Agarkar, for the moment, have neither.

After an ordinary first spell yesterday, Bond came back with a magnificent second one, having even the redoubtable Rahul Dravid hopping around. Apart from the beauty that Zaheer bowled to Nathan Astle to prompt his dismissal, we saw nothing similar from the Indians.

It makes you wonder why Tinu Yohannan wasn't playing this Test in place of Nehra. Though he's hardly express, his height would have created problems of a different kind for the batsmen. But the blind faith in Nehra prevailed and so far, it's produced no miracles. Don't hold your breath either.

While Agarkar and Nehra continued to illustrate why they can't hack it at the highest level, Zaheer and Sanjay Bangar were superb. Bangar was magnificent, choking off the runs and also picking up the crucial wicket of Craig McMillan. Unlike some of the others, he knows his limitations and stays well within them. If maximising minimal talent is a virtue, then Bangar is almost in the saintly category.

So is Mark Richardson. Watching him bat, you're almost reminded of John Wright and Bruce Edgar. Like them, Richardson is not a player you would go miles to see but he has obduracy and immense determination in common.

With Matthew Hayden, Herschelle Gibbs and Virender Sehwag doing their best to rewrite the opening manual, it's almost been forgotten that the job description primarily involves dulling the shine on the new ball. Few do that better than Richardson. For an opening batsman to average close to 50 after 20 Tests – irrespective of the opposition or the conditions – is simply outstanding.

The contrast between the Bangar-Richardson type of cricketer and the Nehra-Agarkar sort couldn't be more stark. In India, we set far too much store by talent, and therein lies our greatest weakness. Face it, men like Mark Richardson or Justin Langer would never have played for India. Why rely on men of substance when you can pick players with potential, potential to throw it all away?

Dileep Premachandran is assistant editor of Wisden.com in India.

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