Yeah, feddy and the galling thing is if we suggest this now, it will be derided as hindsight. At that time he was riding on that 169 against a *good* Pakistani attack.
The trouble with that definition is that a *good* Pakistani attack on paper is not necessarily a *good* Pak attack in the field. It really is futile to judge people on performance *only* against Pakistan. The counter to this is everyone else failed and he lifter us from 69/4 but to me in a test match, the conditions and the bowlers are a bigger threat than the situation. Yuvraj can prosper in certain conditions and if he succeeds, be assured that those conditions have prevailed - he is not the kind to adapt to a difficult pitch or quality bowling. It was screaming obvious we needed Sehwag to open.
It was not just Yuvraj's expected failure but also that Dravid-Chopra opened to accomodate Yuvraj - that was really muddled thinking. Chopra-Sehwag worked because Chopra survived till Lunch and Sehwag usually took the score to 100+ by then putting pressure on Aussies. To believe that Chopra-Dravid, especially with Dravid reluctant to open as always, would give us a good start was really really stupid. And I said this before the event, too. I dont blame the team management alone because 90% of Indian Cricket followers found that logical at that time. Very few saw the alternative vision with Sehwag-Chopra opening and Yuvraj dropped. Sometimes, you have to drop the guy who scored 169 in the previous match to succeed in a place like Australia. That needs vision and Kumble didnt have it.