Not too long ago I suggested that the absence of the master, Sachin Tendulkar, would enable India to select an heir apparent at the opening slot once he has departed.

Since Virender Sehwag almost walks into the team irrespective of how many he scores, the team management needed only to find a partner for the “Sultan of Multan”. Gautam Gambhir, it seems, is quite snug in the shoes left vacant by Sourav Ganguly not too long ago.

He displayed, during the IPL, what a perfect foil his clinical approach is to Sehwag’s belligerent one. And a century against Bangladesh on Thursday affirms his potential in the 50-over game.

With the emergence of Shikhar Dhawan, Parthiv Patel and Swapnil Asnodkar during IPL, the top of the order is suddenly no longer a headache for the selectors (well, at least for the ODIs). Gambhir played the No. 3 role to perfection during the Tri-Series Down Under.

Slamming a couple of tons, he ended up the top scorer of the tournament and cemented his place in the senior one-day squad. His performance compared favourably to the other highly reputed No. 3s Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara.

The part of his game which thrills me most is his ability to play spin. I have said it before, and I’ll say it again, this guy is in the league of VVS Laxman and Ganguly, and may very soon rival Sachin Tendulkar and Brian Lara.

He made the great Muttiah Muralitharan look like a club bowler during the CB series and made a mockery of all and sundry, including Shane Warne himself during IPL. If he sorts out the few chinks in his game - particularly his habit of trying to deflect almost everything on off stump down to third man - he could very well become a run machine for his side.

Now, let’s take a look at his partner. Sehwag's innings against Pakistan was more Twenty20 than 50 overs. While he was helped quite a bit by erratic bowling by the Pakistanis, his composure was admirable. It seems he too is cutting down on extravagance and playing percentage shots, whilst still maintaining an astonishing strike rate.

Indeed, it has taken Tendulkar almost half a decade to devise a perfect batting strategy for the ODI game, but Sehwag doesn’t have the pressures the maestro shouldered for a decade and a half, nor is he dogged by the injuries, not yet anyway.

In the light of it all, he seems in a position to build on this near-perfect technique that has helped the senior statesman of the team haul in all those runs. Bigger tests await these two, both at different stages of their careers, yet bound together by time and selectors.