Friday, July 26, 2002 Many old-timers creaked their way on to the stage at this week's Wisden Indian Cricketer of the Century awards. Mushtaq Ali, India's first centurion on overseas soil, being the finest example when he picked up a special achievement award.

But the lingering memory for me was the current Indian squad's appearance at the ceremony. Clearly in awe of the great and good of Indian cricket gathered around them, Sourav Ganguly's players edged gingerly around the stage and exuded a youthfulness that was refreshing and suggested a bright future for Indian cricket. The squad was not led out by Ganguly, but by their 17-year old reserve wicketkeeper who looked more like the team mascot than an international cricketer.

If these young men hold the key to India's future development, their youthfulness also betrays a weakness in the current Indian team: its lack of experience. While the batting line-up came good in the one-day series, thanks largely to players who are almost as inexperienced of failure as they are of international cricket, the longer game holds more serious dangers.

Helpful wickets and shoddy bowling allowed the teams in the one-day tournament to rattle up such impressive totals. And it will be the team with the most penetrative bowling attack that wins this Test series. Add to this the tendency for many English tracks to do a passable impression of their counterparts in Asia and you would imagine that the scene is set for India to play their pair of match-winning bowlers.

This might seem an odd strategy to propose but there have been few green-tops in English Test cricket in recent years. India should back their geniuses with the willow to surpass England in the first innings, and then call on Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble to undermine England's confidence in the second half of the game. Even as a defensive strategy, India will find it easier to contain England with their spin twins than with any combination of fast-medium bowlers, doubly so now that Marcus Trescothick is injured.

India, it seems, have got their selection knickers in a twist for the Lord's Test. It is a common mistake for Asian teams to think back to the 1970s and 1980s, when England's swingers and seamers undid them. It is a fatal mistake to leave out your most threatening bowler. India have already paid the price in the first innings at Lord's.

If they do manage to avoid defeat, Harbhajan should be the first name on the Indian team-sheet for the rest of series, closely followed by Kumble; creaky but still dangerous. Oh yes, and I suppose they had better have that Tendulkar chap next.

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Kamran Abbasi, born in Lahore, brought up in Rotherham, is deputy editor of the British Medical Journal.

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