Perhaps there is a design to this, perhaps India are testing their own resilience to the full by making it more difficult for themselves, or perhaps it's simply a case of being too smart for their own good. The team they have selected for the final is bizarre to say the least: pace bowlers were never going to bowl 30 overs on this pitch, and in selecting two men who were potentially the most ill-suited for this match – Javagal Srinath, who landed in Colombo at 5am this morning from England where the temperatures are about half that of Sri Lanka, and Ajit Agarkar, whose skiddy, just-short-of-the-length balls are likely to comfort the stroke-makers on a slowish pitch – they have only increased the odds against themselves. Anil Kumble hasn't been up to the scratch in this tournament so far, but it's difficult to imagine him going for seven runs an over, as Srinath did in his first spell. And in any case, this is just the sort of pitch you'd rather err on the side of spin. Sourav Ganguly, by his own admission, made a costly error of judgement by not playing two spinners in the first Test against England at Lord's. Just how costly this lapse will be, we will know in few hours. In their current disposition, you wouldn't put anything beyond India, but it can easily be said that a bit of commonsense would have helped. Sambit Bal

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