India v Bangladesh: So What Is New?

Call it emotional or any other adjective that takes your fancy, my prediction of the outcome of this tour was nothing but accurate. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to deduce that this tour is surplus to requirements for Indian cricket at present.

However, a contract is a contract and it must be satisfied in full, regardless of whether the BCCI makes $10 or $10 million.

Question is, what have we learned about Team India from this series that we did not already know? Nothing at all really. Nothing at all.

Sourav Ganguly remains a ferocious tiger against the minnows. He has even proven himself capable of scoring more than a run every two balls. When he puts his head down he is still able to eek out a doughty knock, punctuated every now and then by shots that only he was ever capable of pulling off. More importantly, he has cemented his spot for the England tour, while Yuvraj Singh continues to rot.

Dinesh Karthik is nothing more than a stop-gap solution who is stopping a regular opener from cementing his place at the tope of the order. I fail to believe that there is no opening batsman on the domestic ciruit who has not shown some semlbance of talent and temperament for the big league. Stop the Karthik experiment and let the real men do the job.

The World Cup seems to have drawn the zing out of Zaheer Khan. He needs to show that he is not only committed to the team's cause, but he is proud to be out there. Poor body language has been the bane of Indian teams over the years and it must be addressed at the first instance.

As the match enters a possibly exciting fifth day, it will be interesting to watch the level of intent in Sachin Tendulkar's batting. One would think he has a license to blast away like the days of old. If nothing else, then simply to show the kids how it is done.

If this first Test does not result in an Indian win, I only hope that the rains stay away long enough for Dravid's men to quickly and clinically do the honours in the second test. I am not sure it is in any fan's best interest for this tour to drag out any longer than it needs to.