Yuvraj doubtful for first Test against England - Blessing in disguise?

It is being reported that Yuvraj may not be available for the first test against England. This may actually be a blessing in disguise for Sauvrav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and the selectors.

With Yuvraj being injured Saurav is sure to be included in the side and Rahul does not have to be a makeshift opener. It would mean that India would go into the test series with proper openers thus giving them a very good chance of winning.

I believe (though simplistically) that our defeat in Karachi, which most people may have already forgotten, was due to two main factors. One - The absense of proper openers and two - lack of a right arm pacer.

The absense of a proper opener was forced upon the team by one - the selectors who probably insisted on Ganguly being in the team and two - Greg Chappel who probably insisted on Yuvraj being in the team, leaving no option but to go in without an opener. Dravid being the "lead by example" kind of captain took it upon himself to open as against Ganguly who when faced with a similar dilemma made scapegoats of the wicketkeeper, Laxman, Dravid, Sehwag, etc. (It has to be admitted that this reluctance of Ganguly to open led to the discovery of Virender Sehwag as an opener.). Even though Dravid got centuries in the first two tests, it is clear that he is not very comfortable as opener. I think he has a psychological block which he is finding quite difficult to overcome. He is most comfortable at no 3 and as the best batsman of the team deserves the right to be comfortable. Invariably when Dravid makes runs at no 3, India win. I also think that with Dravid opening, the batting order seemed disturbed. Taking all these into consideration, I believe we should have a proper opener - Gambir or Jaffer, open the innings.

If we recall the last series, Balaji was one of the major performers in that series. Balaji swung the ball quite prodigiously and accounted for quite a few batsmen with beautiful deliveries. He is a ideal partner to Pathan. In the Karachi test, if we had Balaji instead of Zaheer or RP Singh, it might have been the case that Pakistan would have been bowled out for under a 100 in the first innings from which it would have been impossible to comeback. For some reason Balaji seems to have gone missing. If he is unavailable, I think Sreesanth would be an equivalently effective partner to Irfan. (I hope we do look beyond Agarkar, at least for the tests). A right armer pacer, taking the ball away from the batsman - like Balaji or Sreesanth, would be very dangerous on a pitch like Karachi. In addition, it would also add to the variety of the attack. I hope that we select a new right arm pace bowler - either Sreesanth, VRV Singh, Munaf Patel or Balaji and solve this issue.

Yuvraj being injured would certainly mean that his middle order spot would be taken by Ganguly. It should be made clear to Ganguly that this would be last chance he would get. With the issue of Ganguly settled and with Dravid now coming at no 3, we can solve the problem no 1 by having Gambir or Jaffer open with Sehwag. Before the one day series, I was of the opinion that Gambir should be given one more chance. However, with his performance in the one days where his total lack of sense showed up, my mind has been changed and now think that maybe Jaffer should be given a chance.

Either way, we will get back our most potent weapon, Dravid at 3 giving the batting order a settled look. This is why I state that Yuvraj being injured would be a huge blessing in disguise for all people concerned.