Echo

A few days ago, I made a case for Aakash Chopra to be included in the Indian side, for the time being as the heir apparent for Dravid's place. In that piece, I also touched about the inexperience of some of the potential replacements. Sambit Bal, the erudite editor of CricInfo, discusses many of the same points, though the focal point of his thesis is the search for a replacement for Ganguly, not Dravid.

Aakash Chopra has done everything possible in the last season to win back his place in the team. He has stacked up the runs, and got them big (1339 runs at 60.86, with five centuries). It always seemed a bit abrupt when he was dropped after three failures, and he was a bit unfortunate not to be picked for the last tour to Australia. He has started the season well, and batted confidently and positively till a good ball from Munaf Patal accounted for him in the Irani Cup. If a call were to be made on who the six batsmen most likely to succeed against Australia are, Chopra can't be far away.