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3rd Test: Australia wins Sydney Test (scorecard), South Africa won Test Series 2-1.. T20 & ODI series follows.
Current Cricket Series : South Africa vs Australia, West Indies vs New Zealand. Coming Up : India in NZ 2009.

Bring Aakash Chopra back..!!

Filed under Cricket News India's tour of South Africa.

If you are an Indian. And understand cricket. And are still interested in India South Africa series - here's a story for you..

The news : Rahul Dravid is injured (yet another finger injury) and now VVS Laxman will join Indian team in South Africa. Dravid is out of the remaining two ODIs which also means that the twenty20 match on 1st December will also be missed by him.

You may have watched Dravid having some tablets during 3rd ODI.... if you were watching the match till then.

What you should note is Laxman won't reach in time for the 4rd ODI at Port Elizabeth on 29th November and he will be available only from 5 ODI onwards.

The mistake : At a time when Indian team desperately needs someone who can hit South Africans to the stands - they have selected Laxman when they should have given Sourav Ganguly his last chance at International arena.

I am not saying this because I support his comeback, I have been keeping both my eyes on former Indian captain and have to say that he isn't been good enough for another chance. But I'm saying this because Sourav Ganguly is a single Indian who can hit Mkhaya Ntini, Shaun Pollock, Andre Nel, Jacques Kallis, Charl Langeveldt and Andrew Hall out of the ground. and even Dale Steyn when they bring him back for the test series. Aakash Chopra.jpg

If you are a true Indian cricket fan, you can easily recall Sourav moving to leg side and hitting fast bowlers through off side, over square and covers.. Most of them cleared the boundary.

South Africans know they will demolish our batsmen even if the score a 100. All we need is someone to hit them for 6 sixes at the start and complete his century. I bet you'll start loving our cricket team more than you ever have..!!

The conclusion : People may be arguing Sourav Ganguly may come back for the test series against south Africa, after Indian performance so far and also because Dulip Vengsarkar is the new cheif selector, but this move to send Laxman shows to me that days are yet to change for DADA.

Mr. Vengsarkar may have some surprises for us on the 30th with the announcement of test squad to South Africa.

The suggestion : I am not sure how much Ganguly will be good as a test batsman in South Africa but I know one man who surely be.

Aakash Chopra. A man with immense patience and guts to face any fast bowler anywhere in the world. He may not score runs for you, but you can't shake him with a bouncer. He is a batsman who knows his limits and works very well within it. He is a brilliant judge of a single. What's more, Indian team surely will be looking for both Harbhajan and Kumble to play in test matches - Aakash Chopra is easily the best close-in fielder you can find today.

I would have loved to see "option A" as our starting eleven for first test at Johannesburg, but I believe "Option B" will be as good..!!

Option A	Option B
Wasim Jaffer	Wasim Jaffer
Virendra Sehwag	Virendra Sehwag
Rahul Dravid	Aakash Chopra
Sachin Tendulkar	Rahul Dravid
VVS Laxman	Sachin Tendulkar
Sourav Ganguly	VVS Laxman
MS Dhoni	MS Dhoni
Harbhajan Singh/Irfan Pathan	Harbhajan Singh/Irfan Pathan
Anil Kumble	Anil Kumble
Zaheer Khan	Zaheer Khan
Munaf Patel	Munaf Patel