The Wall is crumbling

Is it the right decision for the Indian think-tank to ask Rahul Dravid to open the Indian batting when the two batsmen picked for that role - Virender Sehwag and Dinesh Karthik - are warming the bench could be a debatable issue.

But the former Indian captain Rahul Dravid, who opened the Indian batting in the first Test against Australia, was all at sea against Brett Lee and company was quite evident for the naked eye.

Opening with Wasim Jaffer in India's first innings, after the hosts were shot out for 343 runs on the second day of the first Test at Melbourne Cricket Ground, Dravid struggled against some accurate Aussie bowling scoring just five runs off 66 balls before being trapped leg before the wicket by Stuart Clark.

He was so engrossed in keeping his wicket intact that he was finding it difficult even to rotate the strike after Indians lost Wasim Jaffer early on the second morning.

After being dropped from the One-Day team by the Indian selectors unfairly and after a modest performance in the home series against Pakistan, it is quite natural for any batsman to prove (not that Dravid needs any proving to do) his worth at any cost.

But to open the batting against some genuine fast bowling on Australian wickets needs lots of support from his teammates and confidence from the team management.

With some youngsters like Yuvraj Singh breathing down his neck (remember Dravid has been asked to open just to accommodate Yuvi in the playing eleven), Dravid's hasty decision might prove a disaster in the long run as the whole batting line up will have to be reshuffled with V V S Laxman, who has been as solid as ever at number six, coming in at number three position.

Laxman might be happy to come at number one, as he does for his team Hyderabad in domestic matches, but most of his Test runs have come while batting at number six and it is not right to disturb that slot during an important and difficult tour Down Under.

Agreed that Dravid has opened the batting for India in the past and has two centuries under his belt, but on the faster and bouncier Australian wickets he looked totally out of depth.

There is no doubt that Dravid is one of the best one-drop batsmen in the world but opening the batting is a specialist's job and one should be mentally prepared for it even before a tour kicks-off and should not be forced on anybody especially after picking two specialists or converted openers to do the job.

Some might argue that Dravid is as good as an opener as he has replaced the opening batsmen whenever an early wicket falls. But here again he is mentally prepared for that before hand and is expected to do that any way.

But being sacrificed as an opener, with two specialists sitting in the dressing room, that too with the batsman's form not as good as it used to be is nothing less than stupidity.

I am sure if six specialist batsmen cannot put enough runs on the board for their bowlers to work on the opposition batting, there is no guarantee that the seventh would do it and the chances of their bowlers getting twenty wickets becomes slimmer as they will be one bowler short in a bid to accommodate the seventh batsman.

The present scenario looks like the stage is set for the selectors to drop Dravid even from Test side if he continues to fail as a makeshift opener after all 'The Wall' is dispensable.