Mumbai: Indian selectors will have a lot to discuss and deliberate in the wake of the national cricket team's pathetic show in Australia when they meet here on Wednesday to pick the squad for next month's Asia Cup in Bangladesh.
With the team seemingly in disarray in Australia because of a collective failure, especially in the batting department, Krishnamachari Srikkanth and his co-selectors would have to do a fine balancing act to get Indian cricket back on track.
The five wise men are under immense pressure from the millions of fans in the country to wield the axe and discard non-performing members of the squad now in Australia. Whether they rest or axe senior batsmen like Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, who is in woeful form at present and is also allegedly at loggerheads with the skipper, and under performing juniors like Suresh Raina, Rohit Sharma and Ravindra Jadeja -- and inject new blood is open to conjecture.
It is not clear whether skipper Dhoni, after having played non-stop cricket and looking jaded himself, will be rested for the four-nation continental championships to be held in Dhaka between from March 11 and 22. India are the defending champions and five-time winners of the trophy and a huge alteration in the composition of the squad is unlikely.
But there are going to be changes after the consecutive flop show in England and Australia by the World Cup-winning team. There are some injury worries too, notably to R Vinay Kumar and Irfan Pathan. Kumar sat out the team's penultimate league game against Australia and also missed the last game against Srilanka at Hobart, while Pathan, who collided on the field with Suresh Raina at Sydney, was not fit enough to take the field in their final round-robin match against the Lankans. (PTI)