There is no alternative... really?

It's an increasingly hollow claim - that there's such a dearth of cricketing talent that none of the famous five can be dropped, no matter if India wins nothing more than the odd Test in series after series

Shane Warne, Glen McGrath, Damien Martyn, Justin Langer, and Adam Gilchrist must be ruing the fact they didn't play for India, because then they could still be playing Test cricket, like Anil Kumble, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, and VVS Laxman.

Warne is just a year older than Kumble, appears fitter, and certainly performed much better than Kumble in the IPL this year. And yet Australia chose to replace Warne, first with MacGill, and then with the rookies McGain and Krejza for the current India tour. Maybe Warne had a year or two of Test cricket left in him, but his form had declined, there wasn't much to look forward to, and it was in the Australian team's interest to groom a replacement.

India, by comparison, has replacements for Kumble - in the likes of Amit Mishra - who are far more accomplished and proven than what was available to Australia. But India chooses to groom replacements by keeping them hanging around in the dressing room. That's what Rohit Sharma did on the Sri Lanka tour, watching from the sidelines as the batting collapsed in Test after Test. He must be bemused that after all that, he's the one to have got the axe. The ludicrity of that decision became even more apparent a couple of days later when he scored a polished century against a full strength Australian bowling lineup in the warmup match for the series. His replacement in the Test side - S Badrinath from the chief selector K Srikkanth's home state of Tamil Nadu - scored 2 runs. 

Compare the treatment meted out to Rohit Sharma with what Australia did on its last tour of India, blooding the debutant Michael Clark in the unfamiliar environs of the sub-continent. Look at what that achieved - a first-ever series victory in India and now a captain in the making. This time they have Mike Hussey and Brad Haddin to fill the shoes of Damien Martyn, who was the top player in the ICL, and Adam Gilchrist, who can still pack a mean punch. It's this constant evolution of the Aussie team, and a selection system that does not guarantee anybody a place on the basis of past records, that has kept them the undisputed leaders of world cricket for more than a decade. India's Test team looks static by comparison, except in the pace bowling department and that's where we can see the most improvement. It's also no accident that it's in the one-dayers and Twenty20 that India look like world beaters, because it is in those teams that there has been an infusion of new leadership and talent. Even within the Test team, it's the younger lot of Sehwag and Gambhir who look the more confident, even though they are the ones in the most vulnerable position, having to face the new ball.

I agree with Anil Kumble that it is performance and fitness, not age, that should determine selection. But by that token, he should consider hanging up his own boots. His average of 42 runs per wicket in the last three series, two of which were played in the sub-continent, is unacceptable by any Test standards. His assertion that the senior batsmen have had just one bad series is equally unacceptable. It wasn't just Ajantha Mendis who exposed their decline. They were blown away by Dale Steyn in Ahmedabad, and only an underprepared pitch for the final Test in Kanpur and the luck of the toss helped India avoid an embarrassing home series defeat to South Africa. The claim that the Indian Test team did well Down Under also smacks of the "moral victory" line that former England captain Nasser Hussein took after going down one-nil to India.

For the record, India lost the series in Australia 2-1. It's true the umpires did India in at Sydney, but the abject batting on the last day was also to blame. It was a flat track and the match could easily have been saved. A similar batting collapse on the last day of the final Test in Adelaide was only averted by a spirited century and a half by Sehwag; otherwise India would've lost the series 3-1. And it wasn't the umpires who got India off to a losing start - it was Kumble's decision to play two spinners on a pacy Melbourne wicket in the first Test.

Besides, it's a throwback to an old inferiority complex to describe a 2-1 lost series against the mighty Australians as a job well done. Dhoni and his one-day and T20 men don't appear to think like that at all. When they take the field against the Aussies, they seem to believe they can win, not just compete.

If you really were to take performance, fitness, and attitude, a change of personnel in the Test team would appear more than warranted. Apart from Kumble himself, Ganguly and Dravid must count themselves lucky to retain their places. They've averaged just about 30 runs in the last three series - and that's 10 Test matches, or 20 innings. The only plausible reason for not dropping Ganguly is that it would have made it hard to explain Dravid's presence in the team, because if you go further back, then Ganguly's figures look much better than those of Dravid, thanks to the big runs Ganguly piled up in boring, drawn Test matches against Pakistan on the flat tracks prepared in Kolkata and Bangalore after India took a one-nil lead in the series.

So that leaves only one way to justify the continuance of the seniors in the Indian Test team - that their potential replacements haven't done enough to make the grade; that they have flattered to deceive. This is a chicken-and-egg situation for the likes of Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina. The odd one-day loss to Pakistan in Bangladesh or to Sri Lanka in Pakistan is inevitable, but that seems to be enough to question their consistency. And, in any case, how can they match the Test-playing credentials of Dravid and Ganguly without getting to play Test matches?

What they have shown is potential and that should be enough in a situation where the old guard has weakened. In fact, it's more than just potential. Their exploits in the T20 world championship, the one-day series Down Under, and the taming of Ajantha Mendis were amazing. The new faces in the Aussie team (in relation to the team that toured in 2004) - people like Mike Hussey, Brad Haddin, McGain - had far thinner international credentials when they replaced their seniors. If the odd ageing player like Hayden retains his place, it is on the strength of a 60 plus average against the Indians, and even he must be looking over his shoulder, given the Australian way of putting the team's interests above those of individuals.

The biggest travesty of this Test series is its promotion as a clash between the one-day world champions and T20 world champions. One of the heroes of that T20 triumph has just become a Test discard without even getting to play a Test. And that after three disappointing Test series, not just one as Kumble suggests.

c_sumit@dnaindia.net