Three regular in the Indian side must be feeling the heat. Gambhir, Sehwag and Zaheer must not allow more fuel to be added to the fire on Sunday. Failure against world champions England might just bring the proof down.Indian openers are barely lasting the powerplay overs. Now that’s a major area of worry. Gambhir can’t look to dab every other delivery, play with an angled bat or away from his body. He is too good a player to be repeating mistakes. Sehwag seems to have no better part of valour must be a man from Mars. But then again, it’s worked with Viru for most of his carrer.

No wonder, Dhoni wants to play seven batsmen and throw a sheepish bowling at tack to wolves. Our openers presently need insurance from Kohli and co. India, this way, is almost temptingfate. The openers must show the way or step aside. India can’t afford yet an other miserable Twenty20 camping on a world stage.

Zaheer Khan is another who isn’t living up to his billing. His craft and experience isn’t visible. Be it at the start or end, he isn’t quite pulling his weight. Boubt is strange animal left-armers with the new ball is costing India the verity. It’s difficult to discount Zhaeer, or the other two top players, that the openers surely are, but you can’t fly in the face of logic for too long.

As an aside, you wonder if India have chosen a couple of bowlers too many and sacrificed the option of say, a third opener, for this competition. England was red hot against Afghanistan. Steve Finn and company arguably give them the best attack of all. Seven batsman and all, India still must not expect a windfall of runs on Sunday.

I also believe Yuvraj will get better and more fluent with every outing and hence his batting position should be flexible. Rohit or Suresh Raina up the order every now and then may not be a bad idea. Yuvraj would be at his fluid best soon but is still understandably getting there.