India have had a favourite ploy over the years – fielding one makeshift opener in a home series. It allows for a flatteringly long middle order, or an extra spinner, and makes up for the allrounder that disappeared with Manoj Prabhakar. This time, for the two-Test series against Zimbabwe, which starts at Nagpur on Thursday, they have gone a step further and picked two non-specialist openers alongside Shiv Sunder Das, and who knows, they might yet turn out to be the real thing.

They are Deep Dasgupta of the shoddy wicketkeeping, and Sanjay Bangar of the handy swing bowling. Gautam Gambhir, 20, who has scored a double-century in each of his last two first-class games (against Railways and the Zimbabwean tourists), must feel a touch disappointed. And so must Connor Williams, the man displaced from the squad without much reason.

Nonetheless, there are heartening signs. Dasgupta and Bangar are tough nuts, obdurate and unflappable. Dasgupta showed it in a match-saving 63 at Port Elizabeth, and then in an unattractively useful century in the next official Test, against England at Mohali. His weak link is his keeping, and Anil Kumble at the Kotla in Delhi will test him hugely. In a fortnight's time we'll have a better idea of Dasgupta's role in the team ... if he's still in it.

Bangar is not young nor dizzily gifted. But John Wright, India's coach, reckons he has the temperament of a Test cricketer. A ten-and-half-hour 212 for Railways on a sticky track against Tamil Nadu last week, where the next highest score was 58 by the No. 9, supports Wright's belief. Dasgupta will clearly play at Nagpur, as there's no other wicketkeeper, so Bangar will probably miss out to start with.

The team, by and large, contains no surprises. It is good to see Zaheer Khan back. Two months since being slagged off publicly by physio Andrew Leipus for being lazy and overweight, Zaheer has steadily worked his way back to top form, and is even reported to have shed a few kilos. The last two Ranji Trophy games have brought him 20 wickets. No wonder, then, that Baroda have reached their second successive Ranji final, where they will play Railways (Bangar's team). VVS Laxman, who was left unbeaten with 53 in Hyderabad's collapse to 127 in the quarter-finals, couldn't even blame the other batsmen: "Zaheer just bowled wicket-taking balls."

On current form, Zaheer should be the favourite to take the new ball with Javagal Srinath, ahead of the bright Tinu Yohannan, while Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble will take care of the spin. In fact, the first XI can be reliably put down in the scorebook, give or take the odd swap in the batting order.

India (probable): 1 Shiv Sunder Das, 2 Deep Dasgupta (wk), 3 VVS Laxman, 4 Sachin Tendulkar, 5 Rahul Dravid, 6 Sourav Ganguly (capt), 7 Virender Sehwag, 8 Anil Kumble, 9 Harbhajan Singh, 10 Zaheer Khan, 11 Javagal Srinath, 12th man: Sanjay Bangar, Tinu Yohannan or Sarandeep Singh.

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

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