How effective have the Delhi Boys been?  Of all the Indian opening pairs that have scored more than a thousand runs together, they have the best average per opening partnership of 57 runs.  This is about 4 runs per partnership better than the storied pair of Sunil Gavaskar and Chetan Chauhan who averaged about 53 runs per partnership, and more importantly, this is over 20 runs per partnership better than the 37 runs per association that Sehwag had managed with Wasim Jaffer.

The fact that Gambhir and Sehwag both are excellent runners between the wicket, yet are quite adept at finding the boundary, while also upsetting the fielding side with their lefty-righty combination, bodes well for this partnership to provide India with a steady presence at the top for a long time to come. 

The irony is that just when India has found a stable and successful opening partnership, their middle order is imploding, through a combination of poor form and age finally catching up with a magnificent quartet of batsmen.  This is reminiscent of the success of Kapil Dev and Karsan Ghavri with the new ball, at the same time that the Indian spin quartet was fading. 

The repetition of this pattern, says something about the way Indian cricket works.  Players who are “Stars” do not normally leave voluntarily and are not replaced till they perform so poorly that they are pushed out.  And while the “Stars” are playing, few replacements are groomed.  Rare is the player, like the legendary Sunil Gavaskar who quits when people ask “Why?” and not when they ask “Why not?”

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