India were right to move Rahul Dravid up to opening batsman against Australia, to make room for Yuvraj Singh in the middle order, captain Anil Kumble said.
MELBOURNE: India were right to move Rahul Dravid up to opening batsman against Australia, to make room for Yuvraj Singh in the middle order, captain Anil Kumble said after his team lost the first test on Saturday.
India, chasing an improbable 499 for victory, were bowled out for 161 late on the fourth day and lost the match by 337 runs.
Dravid struggled against the new ball on a low and slow wicket, making five and 16, while Yuvraj made a duck and five in his two appearances.
"I think it was the right decision," said Kumble, who was forced to defend the selection several times at a media conference after the match.
"You go with form and the team composition and looking at the series against Pakistan, going by form this was the best combination going into this test match.
It's difficult when Yuvraj is playing so well and we don't pick him, you say: 'Why not?'
Then when we put Rahul up the order and then make way for Yuvraj, you say: 'No, you shouldn't have done that'.
There are always ifs and buts...but for me personally I need to look at the team dynamics and who is batting well.
If you look at our batting order then all seven of them are batting well and the other two openers, who could have possibly taken someone else's place, weren't really getting runs."
Kumble said no decisions about the composition of the team for the second test in Sydney, and whether to bring in aggressive opener Virender Sehwag or Dinesh Karthik, would be made until the team had inspected the pitch.
The leg-spinner, however, added he was confident that Dravid, who has amassed 9,704 test runs, would rediscover his form, no matter where he batted in the rest of the series.
"He is too good a player to worry about his batting," said Kumble.
"He just needs to go out there and enjoy his batting. I'm positive that he can do that.
He has played more than 100 test matches and scored more than 9,000 runs...I am really confident he will be able to come out and bat the way he does," Kumble defended.
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