Srinath is no longer an automatic choice

The old firm of Javagal Srinath and Venkatesh Prasad is back together, bringing back nostalgic memories of their salad days. Their magnificent exploits as a pair in India and abroad were cut short by injury not long after they came together and things have rarely been the same again.

Srinath was the first to pay for the ravages of an overdose of cricket and his captain's excessive reliance on him in conditions not always conducive to fast bowling. For one who went down with a major injury that made the rotator cuff a household name, he has come back more than satisfactorily, sometimes approaching or even exceeding his fastest and fieriest. There has been in recent years an assurance in his stride born of long years of experience, which was conspicuous by its absence in his early years, when he would sometimes look lost and helpless in the face of punishment.

Make no mistake about it, Srinath has struck fear in the hearts of the best of batsmen. Not physical fear maybe as a Shoaib Akhtar or a Brett Lee might cause, but fear of the damage he could cause to batsmen's averages and elegance on the field. He has this nasty habit of finding the batsman's ribcage, a habit that can make life pretty uncomfortable. And he is quite lethal when bowling to lefthanders.

It is only in very recent times that this outstanding fast bowler from Karnataka has added a yorker and a slower ball to his armoury, and these additions have made him a more effective bowler. Yet it is becoming increasingly evident that Srinath is no longer a match winning bowler; he is rather one who can almost invariably give the side a flying start by getting a couple of early wickets, and come back with the second new ball to break a partnership.

With the emergence of Zaheer Khan - someone of whose induction into Test cricket Srinath was an ardent advocate when he was waiting in the wings - and Ashish Nehra, not to mention the availability of Agarkar, Harvinder Singh and Mohanty as support bowlers, he is increasingly under pressure to hold his place in the team, especially as he tends to excuse himself from one-day series. He is no longer an automatic choice, at least as the leader of the pack. He therefore has much to prove in the Test series ahead in Sri Lanka.

As a longtime admirer of this gentle giant from Karnataka, I, for one, will be delighted if he proves me wrong by reasserting his numero uno status in the side in unmistakable terms.