NO ALTERNATIVE STRATEGY

Australia is without the services of the most dreaded opening pair, Hyden and Gilchrist, the legendary spin bowler Warne, the middle order dynamite Symonds, the nagging speed kings, McGrath and Lee, and the victory they achieved with ease in Gauhathi was amazing. That is the stuff of a champion side. After winning the toss, for the reason best known to him, Dhoni chose to bat, on a pitch, which traditionally assists the swing bowlers in the morning, due to fog factor. The match was over in few overs, when our top batsmen were back in the pavilion with only 20 odd run on the board. Dhoni is aware of the batting strength of Pravin kumar and Harbhajan, as evidenced in the previous matches. When we lost, two wickets in the first over, he should have sent one of these two immediately. They are capable of upsetting any bowling line up. Few couple of good overs for India would have changed the entire direction of the match. Dhoni stick to traditional game plan or strategy, without taking any risks. Pravin kumar has the all the qualities of a good all-rounder. He needs promotion in his batting line-up. He can be used as pinch hitter occasionally, when we lose wickets very early, as we did in Gauhathi.