A time to ring the changes

Arjuna Ranatunga, the legendary Sri Lankan captain, termed it "cocky", Greg Chappell said it was "the only way", and Rahul Dravid felt that it was all part of a "broader vision". The buzzword around the Indian camp, especially after the series was clinched at Pune, is "experimentation" and tomorrow's game will see another new combination take the field.

"There's a big picture and there's a small picture," said Chappell during the pre-match press conference. "With a long season coming up, we'd like to rest a few key players and give the youngsters a chance with our vision to developing a team for the future. It gives us a chance to test out variations and options. That doesn't mean we are not trying to win every game. That's the smaller picture which we are also taking very seriously."

Sachin Tendulkar, Harbhajan Singh and Irfan Pathan were rested for the previous match and India have decided to give Rahul Dravid a break for this game despite him being "fit enough to play". Chappell made no bones about the fact that this was the time to test out all players and try out all combinations. "We have to experiment in these games, because we don't have much choice now," he had said after the Ahmedabad game. "If we keep playing with a winning combination every time we take the field we won't know what our bench strength is. And we just don't want to wake up one fine morning and find ourselves in an awkward situation just because some of the regular players are unavailable."

Interestingly the selectors and the board decided that Piyush Chawla, the legspinning allrounder from Uttar Pradesh, would train with the squad before the game. "It will benefit him enormously," said Chappell about Chawla's stint. "He's is a fine cricketer and this will help in grooming him for further challenges. He will learn a lot while mixing with the other players and bowling at them in the nets. He's got Sachin Tendulkar and Dhoni out in the Challenger Series and he got Sehwag out in the nets today. We will try and include such players to train with the squad throughout the year, depending on the region in which we are playing."

With the series clinched, there can only be positives coming out of these methods, like Gautam Gambhir showing that he can deliver in the one -dayers as well, but a pattern is emerging with respect to the vision for the future. The selection of VRV Singh for the last two games was a clear indication that the selectors have decided to give greenhorns the break and see how they perform when thrown in the deep end.

VRV Singh hasn't yet had a full domestic season while Chawla has just played a measly two first-class games - he played in the Duleep Trophy before playing a single Ranji Trophy game. Performers in the Under-19 levels are being pushed into the big leagues - Shanbaz Nadeem, the 16-year-old left-arm spinner from Jharkhand who was a sensation at junior levels, was picked for the Challenger Trophy after two first-class games and was then included in the East Zone Duleep Trophy squad. Pragyan Ojha, the offspinner from Hyderabad, was chosen for the South Zone squad after playing exactly one first-class game and is already being spoken of as a possible replacement for Harbhajan Singh, if he is not available.

John Bracewell, the New Zealand coach, was recently criticised by the New Zealand Herald for his experimentation policy ahead of the World Cup: "You get the feeling that if John Bracewell was a chemistry teacher his science laboratory would have been blown to smithereens within the first weeks of the opening term. He has opted for experimentation to find the best World Cup combination and has so far watched his shrewdest theories explode in spectacular style." Chappell's India, though, have had no such problems with results and the chemical laboratory appears to be churning out solutions pretty fast.