The all important New Zealand tour is round the corner and the question that looms large is: who gets the berth in the team for the upcoming cricket series and who gets ignored? Some of the key players’ selection is still uncertain due to fitness issues. However, there are strong speculations that Munaf Patel and Rudra Pratap Singh may finish off their race to the team successfully. They will undergo fitness test at National Cricket Academy on Thursday and the status report will be handed over to BCCI by the academy director Dave Watmore prior to the selection on Friday.

Those on the net Wednesday, observed that the duo were full of vigor while bowling at the nets during their training session. It seemed they took good care to nurse on their injuries and regain the fitness level. In all probability, both of them are going to be in the national team for the upcoming cricket series.  

Harbhajan Singh, who was granted a break to get a treatment for his injuries, returned from South Africa and declared himself fit for taking up any international cricket commitment. However Bhajji was yet to be present in NCA and appear for the routine fitness test. There is a speculation that, Harbhajan may be rested for the first half of the series that is the five ODIs and two Twenty-20 series and picked up latter for the three Test Series.

India’s  performance in the recent years against the Kiwis were far from satisfactory and it is once again time for India to take on the same rivals. Whether India can beat New Zealand on their home ground is a million dollar question and much depends on the building up a balanced team. Harbhajan’s experience and youngster RP Singh and Munaf Patel’s zeal can be asset for the team against Vettori’s squad.

Even if Munaf and RP Singh can not make it into the limited overs, they have fair chances to get into the test team. There is also speculation about dropping of Munaf for Sreesanth, who can prove more useful than Munaf in the tests with his famed outswinger. New Zealand team CEO in the mean time admitted "India are probably the most exciting side in the world at present, packed full of superstar players”. It will be indeed a mixed bag of matches; Cricket360 waits along with the nation to see what happens in Wellington and Christchurch in the upcoming days.

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3.25 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."

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