Dasgupta sees his opening chances slip away

With his unbeaten 54 in the second innings in the match against the Busta XI, Deep Dasgupta may yet again have come into the reckoning for a place in the Test side. His first-innings dismissal, for seven, was more unlucky than anything else, the delivery keeping much too low to play.

"This is an indication of a bad time. You can never expect the balls to keep so low. But I will keep trying, and I will bounce back into the side. That is my target now," said Dasgupta, until recently the opener-cum-wicket-keeper in the Indian side.

Dasgupta could not believe his ears when coach John Wright told him, before the second Test, that he was not playing. "You are not playing in the Trinidad Test, but keep working hard," was what Wright told him the night before the first day of the Port of Spain match.

"True, I batted poorly in the first Test. But I thought I kept well at Guyana. I know that the dropped catch of Carl Hooper was costly, but that was a difficult chance," said Dasgupta. "I could reach the ball, but I could not get it in my gloves. Had I been able to get it in my palm, the catch would not have gone down."

Dasgupta may have some right to consider himself unlucky. He has opened the innings after spending long hours in the field, a weary proposition by any standards. Moreover, he donned the opener's mantle without a murmur of complaint in South Africa and has not been a disaster in that position.

He will now have to slug it out with Wasim Jaffer for the top-order position. The Mumbai lad did reasonably well in the second innings of the three-day tour match, scoring 62. Since Sourav Ganguly, before the fixture, said that the player who performed best would be the top contender for the opening position, Jaffer could realistically think about playing his third Test.

Jaffer also stands a higher chance of getting the team management's nod because he is a specialist opener in domestic cricket. Although Dasgupta did open the batting when he was needed to, he may have to wait a few more Tests before he does so again.