For starters, a 50-run partnership at the top of the order would be nice.
Bringing that about might be tougher than it should be. The last time India's openers posted a 50-plus stand in a Test match away from home was way back in July 2011, when Abhinav Mukund and Gautam Gambhir posted 63 against England at Lord's. Vijay and Dhawan are the ones to have come closest, with 49 runs at Trent Bridge earlier this year.
But their pairing abroad has been distinctly under par. In 14 completed innings away, they have stitched together 314 runs at 22.42. It's not that the two haven't been scoring runs: It's just that they haven't been scoring runs together, and that has hurt India at the top. Australia might be a final chance to get their act together before the selectorial tinkering starts all over again.
Dhawan, for one, isn't a firm believer in either statistics or trends. Sometimes, his too-casual exterior seems a carefully crafted mask, a coping mechanism against the vagaries of form and criticism. When the mask slips and one-liners dry up, Dhawan can appear as ferociously competitive as some of his more intense teammates.
"Just because it hasn't been done before (by us) doesn't mean we cannot do it," he says, "Experts say what they think. Whenever I'm making a mistake I'm open to change. Like in England, when I couldn't score much, it was a great learning curve. It made me a better player."
Dhawan was an ugly sight in England, poking and prodding in his brief stints in the middle, while Murali Vijay was a revelation. Dhawan, however, got some runs in New Zealand, and says, "I really try to enjoy both success and failure. I try to listen to different opinions and think if it's gonna work for me. You've got to get used to the situation and the bounce (in Australia). That's the most important thing."
Modern cricketers dislike discussing technical shortcomings in public, and all Dhawan will venture to say is that Australia is his second home, with his wife hailing from Melbourne, and that he feels more comfortable here. "I dislike the travel, it's too far from India," he says.
Dhawan is, as cricketers like to say, a "confidence-player", someone who doesn't like to be reminded too much about complicated things like his awkward fending away of short balls or reluctance to use the depth of the crease, something Mohammad Azharuddin pointed out at the beginning of the year.
It's here that he can pick a feather out of Murali Vijay's thinking cap. The more cerebral of the two, and also the more successful away from home, Vijay too has quite a few chinks to iron out, notably his backfoot play . But he has the better technique. "If you are in good nick, it' going to help because it rubs off on the team. That's what I learnt in England. That's what I want to give the team. Both teams are depending on the start. Personally I'm ready."
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