The big fitness examination later this month may prove to be a dampener, but for the moment India can feel good about having their best pool of players available for the one-day triangular tournament in South Africa. The good news lay not merely in the inclusion of Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman, Ashish Nehra and Javagal Srinath, but in the fact that the selectors had shown skill and foresight to cover all the bases, send out the right signals and plan for the long haul. Srinath, who has played only a handful of one-dayers in the last two seasons, has been told that, if he is fit, his beauty rest cannot come in the way of building a World Cup squad. If he wishes to play in 2003, he must play now - or else make way. It was the only effective measure against a bowler who can still be very good but has become increasingly complacent.

Blooding a wicketkeeper-batsman for the competition was rightly given priority. Deep Dasgupta has not only received words of praise from the greatest wicketkeeper-turned-coach of all time - Rodney Marsh - but he also started out as a specialist batsman who scored a century on first-class debut. Sameer Dighe has been error-prone behind the stumps and will be 35 in 2003. He was clearly not the solution.

The inclusion of Shiv Sunder Das has its plusses and minuses. There is a school of thought that Das the Test opener might be destroyed once the reckless ways of first-15-overs cricket infiltrate his technique. The other way of looking at it is that he provides India with a genuine opportunity to spread their weight across the top order. Far too often have the dismissals of the top three spelt the end of the match.

You only have to look back at the World Cup in England to realise that when confronted with a new ball in good bowling conditions, even the best batsmen are susceptible. With the lower-middle order void left behind by Mohammad Azharuddin, Ajay Jadeja and Robin Singh, India might, at some stage, wish to push down Tendulkar or Ganguly. Das, more than Virender Sehwag, gives them a plan B.

And finally, the selectors did well by cutting away the flab. Rahul Sanghvi was omitted, not because he did anything wrong, but because his services were never required. He would have been even less useful in South Africa. Hemang Badani was dropped because his batting had declined so steadily - particularly against the faster bowlers - that taking him along would have been a decision riding on blind hope.

It means that every one of these 15 has a genuine chance of making it into the final XI - Venkatesh Prasad will nudge the two young left-arm quicks, Zaheer Khan and Nehra, for a place; Reetinder Sodhi will breathe down the necks of Yuvraj Singh and Sehwag; and Kumble and Harbhajan Singh will both have to bowl well enough to warrant the inclusion of two specialist spinners. If all goes well at the fitness test at the Wankhede on September 22 and 23, India will have found their best combination for South Africa.

Rahul Bhattacharya is a staff writer with Wisden.com in India.

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