India are not even paper tigers for the three-Test series in Sri Lanka - VVS Laxman, Anil Kumble and Ashish Nehra are all injured while Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan are not confirmed fit. It was assumed that the selectors wouldn't get it terribly wrong when picking the 16-man squad because unavailability forced their hand in every decision. Even so, two of their choices were sad reminders that Indian selectors rarely look forward enough, or think consistently enough.

Venkatesh Prasad is a tri-series all by himself - picked for every third series. His inclusion is always necessitated by the "need for experience" and every omission justified by "wanting to give the youngsters a chance". It's not fair on anybody and especially not on Prasad.

He doesn't do spectacularly well, but nearly always better than the men who replace him - Harvinder Singh, Ajit Agarkar and Debasish Mohanty in Tests; Thiru Kumaran and Amit Bhandari in one-dayers. Now he is once again deemed a better choice than either Agarkar or Mohanty who went to Zimbabwe and then to Sri Lanka for the triangular, but you can be sure things will change soon.

It's even harder to understand the ostrich-in-the-desert reaction to the opener dilemma. It is India's single biggest problem in the last decade, and by selecting only two openers the selectors have once again pretended it doesn't exist.

On the tour after this one, to South Africa, a third opener will almost certainly be required, and somewhere in a squad of 16 - with four medium-pacers and six middle-order batsmen - a young opener could have been fitted in. Instead, the selectors have adhered to a baffling precedent set before the Zimbabwe tour, when not a single back-up for SS Das and Sadagoppan Ramesh was included in a 26-man camp.

Ramesh has rightly been persevered with because his failures at the international level have been greatly exaggerated. But his shortcomings are obvious and he has struggled in recent Tests. If through poor performances or injury an opener is lost, an unsuspecting middle order batsman may once again be thrust into his slot (like poor VVS Laxman and Hemang Badani), though it was mentioned that flying in a specialist will be an option.

Vinayak Mane and Gautam Gambhir are India's brightest young openers, Ravneet Ricky was a crucial member of the Under-19 triumph in Sri Lanka and Connor Williams, 27, was outstandingly consistent for Baroda last season. The time to blood them was now.

Indian squad: Sourav Ganguly (capt), Rahul Dravid (v-capt), Shiv Sunder Das, Sadagopan Ramesh, Hemang Badani, Sachin Tendulkar, Dinesh Mongia, Samir Dighe, Rahul Sanghvi, Mohammad Kaif, Sairaj Bahutule, Zaheer Khan, Javagal Srinath, Harvinder Singh, Venkatesh Prasad and Harbhajan Singh.

Tendulkar will undergo a bone scan on his injured foot on August 10; if still unfit, he will be replaced by Jacob Martin. Zaheer Khan will also need to pass an MRI scan.

Rahul Bhattacharya is a staff writer with Wisden Online in Mumbai

© Wisden CricInfo Ltd