Bench Strength –
Aakash Chopra was a dependable opener with a solid defence and sound technique to see off the new ball. He played his role to perfection whenever he got a look into the side. The other notable top order batsman of that era was Sadagopan Ramesh whose batting was based on timing and hand-eye coordination with hardly any footwork.
Dinesh Kartik and Deep Das Gupta were India’s reserve wicketkeeper who made the side on a couple of occasions.
The Indian team had promising pacers in Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel and L Balaji who made sporadic appearances into the national team owing to their inconsistencies and fitness issues. Meanwhile, Ajit Agarkar was generally overlooked for tests as he was deemed to be more of one day specialist.
Hope you liked my Dream Test Eleven of the Ganguly’s era and would draw a consensus with most of the players that made the cut.