Sourav Ganguly is scraping at the bottom of the Indian barrel to look for an Indian speedster who can attend to his bowling woes.
With injured Zaheer Khan back in India and Ashish Nehra more of a baggage for the rest of the tour, Ganguly found to his dismay that Laxmipathy Balaji and Irfan Pathan could not quite fill the breach at Melbourne the other night.
Balaji and Pathan gave away 57 and 60 runs respectively in the triangular series opener against Australia and promising though the latter is, it is not everyday that a 19-year-old bowls to world class Australian batsmen in hostile conditions and comes out smiling.
Sanjay Bangar is unlikely to be afforded with another chance to win back his captain's confidence whom he ran out at the MCG. Bangar is a quiet and solid cricketer, much like VVS Laxman, who looks out of place in the hustle and bustle of one-day cricket.
Ganguly has never quite warmed up to Murali Kartik and now no longer needs to deflect questions on the left-arm spinner after his nightmarish Test in Sydney last week.
Consequently, the skipper finds seven frontline bowlers in his squad of 16 but struggles to pick four bowlers who could stand up to the heat of the battle.
Thus the SOS to Amit Bhandari which smells of desperation and a hope in the wilderness that the Delhi right-arm medium-pacer could also firm up the spineless tail.
India has launched a massive hunt for a couple of broad-shouldered, strong-willed youngsters in recent times but despite spreading the net wide, it has caught little except Zaheer Khan.
Zaheer, Nehra, Debashish Mohanty, Bhandari, Laxmiratan Shukla, Rakesh Patel, Harvinder Singh, Doda Ganesh, Tinu Yohannan, T C Kumaran, Avishkar Salvi, Pathan and Balaji are a few names, which come readily to mind, who have been afforded chances.
Bhandari is not one from the top order and his only one-day game against Pakistan in the 2000 Asia Cup in Dhaka cost him 75 runs from 10 overs but he can swing the ball and is useful with the bat.
He has 216 first class wickets at 25 each but at 26 can at best be a short-term arrangement.
But Bhandari has put up impressive performances of late, taking seven wickets in the recent 'A' teams triangular tournament (India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan) in Kolkata at 21 apiece and, before, had an outstanding tour with India 'A' to England where he was the top wicket-taker, including 6 for 38 against Glamorgan. He also promises runs with the bat which is a rarity for an Indian tailender.
As well as Agarkar and Kumble have bowled, Ganguly would not mind letting go one or two wickets from them as long as they can contribute in double figures with the bat.
It also brings Rohan Gavaskar into equation for he is known as a solid batsman and a useful left-arm spinner besides being a brilliant fielder.
India has a battle on hand, for Zimbabwe would be anything but a pushover and it does not have bowlers who could hustle batsmen on a docile pitch at Bellerive Oval in Hobart.
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