 Chance for Uthappa and Gambhir to make a mark
22nd Jun 2007 23:00 IST
Agencies
Young openers Robin Uthappa and Gautam Gambhir will finally have the opportunity to fight for the opening slot without the shadow of Virender Sehwag looming large over them.
Earlier, during the absence of Sourav Ganguly from the one-day scheme of things, the Indian think-tank experimented with Uthappa, Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer and even skipper Rahul Dravid in the opening position, even as Sachin Tendulkar had expressed his desire to return to the top of the order.
After a series of failures in those experiments, with the return of Ganguly and the axing of Sehwag, the scope of experimenting with the opening slot has now narrowed down to just Uthappa and Gambhir.
With Sehwag being axed from both forms of the game, Tendulkar shifted to the middle-order to provide solidity and Dravid once again taking up the number three slot that he has made rightfully his, Ganguly's partner, in the coming tour, is likely to be one among the two.
While Jaffer and Dinesh Karthik are undoubtedly expected to start in the Test series against England, the one-day department should make for some serious competition between the two batsmen from Karnataka and Delhi.
The 22-year-old Uthappa has an experience of playing in ten ODIs while the 28-year-old Gambhir has taken part in 21. The duo in comparison to Sehwag, who has 175 ODIs to his credit, definitely lack in experience.
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