Test discard recalled by selectors for India A

I've been working hard - Chopra

Sidharth Monga

August 29, 2007

"This chance means a lot. It's been three years since I played for India and it has taken a long time coming" © AFP

For about two years after being dropped from the Indian team, Aakash Chopra - a key member of the side that famously drew the Test series in Australia - played with the sole purpose of making a comeback. It left him drained. Then he saw light.

Last season, he started to relax, enjoy the game, see it as something he liked. That change in mindset showed in the runs he amassed - 650 at an average of 50 - for Delhi and North Zone. And the reward came on Wednesday with a call-up to the India A squad for two four-day games at home against South Africa A.

"I was so keen on scoring as many runs as possible to get back that I had stopped enjoying the game," he said from England, where he's spent the summer playing for Staffordshire. "It [the recall] didn't happen; it probably wouldn't have happened anyway. Last season was the start of how I want to play the game. This is a game and I play it because I like it."

Today's news, then, is vindication of what he's done to help himself. "This chance means a lot. It's been three years since I played for India and it has taken a long time coming. I have been working hard on things. I chose to come to England and have played as much as I could and as hard as I could."

The call-up is, depending on how one looks at it, either expected or a surprise. Given the problems India have had at the top, with 11 combinations in the last 35 Tests, one would have expected Chopra back a long time ago. He would, at the very least, have been a member of the A squad on the recent tour of Zimbabwe and Kenya. On the other hand, being kept out of the selectors' plans for so long makes this call-up unexpected.

"Yes, I was disappointed when my name wasn't there for the Kenya and Zimbabwe tours," he says. "I expected [my name] to be there. Yet, while any opportunity should be grasped, this is probably a better opportunity than playing Kenya and Zimbabwe."

Chopra has not played for any Indian national side since being dropped, during the home series against Australia, in October 2004. Staying motivated is difficult in such times but he says being in touch with Rahul Dravid has helped. "We met up at Hove recently and he has been very supportive, he's given me a lot of solid advice. Rahul told me two among the five of us [the two current openers Wasim Jaffer and Dinesh Karthik, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag and himself] will open for India in Tests. That's more than enough to keep me going."

Ironically his call-up came the day Jason Gillespie, in a different time zone, was recalled to the Australia A side. Gillespie is 32, Chopra will be 30 in a month's time. And that, according to trends in Indian cricket, stacks up the odds against him. " Age is just a number as far as I am concerned," he says. "Gillespie is replacing someone who is close to 34 [Shane Harwood]. If you are fit and are scoring runs, there is nothing to stop you from playing."

Given the kind of batsman Chopra is - a dour, solid opener of the old school - two matches might be insufficient to make an impression. Unlike a Sehwag who can notch up a century in two sessions, Chopra's work is not naturally eye-catching. It doesn't deter him, though. "I am not seeing this as the opportunity, this is not the last chance," he says, "I know this is only two matches; you get three innings, four if you are lucky. Yet you can, if you score big, get a ton, maybe a double ton. Having said that, this is the start of the new season. This chance, others, perhaps the Irani, if I make the side, the Ranji season, must be taken."

It's not only about the runs, either, he says. "Making a comeback has more to it than turning up and scoring runs. It's about what slots are available, what the combinations are, what strategy comes into play."

Available slots. That's a key point. From the time Chopra was dropped for the Rawalpindi Test in April 2004 to the time Jaffer and Karthik came together in the Cape Town Test in January 2007, India averaged 45.38 for the first wicket. That average masks India's opening troubles; many of the combinations were makeshift, many of the runs were scored on flat wickets. The real competition for Chopra is the current pair: Jaffer and Karthik have scored 650 runs together at 72.22, all away Tests in three continents.

India next play a Test on November 22, against Pakistan, by which time the Ranji Trophy would have started. He might get four matches, if he is lucky, before the team selection for the Pakistan Tests, and a few more before India tour Australia, the scene of his best Test moments. Yet, he will now know he is back in the scheme of things; one of the five men most likely to open in Australia.

Sidharth Monga is a staff writer with Cricinfo Magazine

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