My last point on this as well here, before i go back to my other sehwag bashing thread
As you should remember Hayden had to make adjustments in his technique againts the pace after his Ashes 05 failures from "bully mode" or else his career would have been finished.
IND dont have much quality depth in opening like AUS, so after they dropped Sehwag for the entire 2007 there wasn't a any other opener in IND who could have kept him out forever.
That isnt how it went. In end 2007 Chopra, a classical opener if there ever was one in the last 10 years, had been doing fine in domestic and county cricket, as was Gambhir. They were the obvious backups to Jaffer+Karthik who had had a good run averaging over 50 for the opening partnership. Chopra in particular has a right to feel hard done by, for not getting a chance. Gambhir of course has also came back in full strength since around then. { Chopra+Gambhir are the regular Delhi openers - Sehwag plays #3 and the alternative opener for Delhi was & is Shikhar Dhawan who was also in good nick then. M Vijay did blossom later.} I recall the "logical" pecking order right before that Aus series was thought to be:
Jaffer+Karthik = incumbents
Chopra= based on performance
Gambhir= based on performance
Sehwag= based on past international experience, had an inconsistent domestic run.
Sehwag got a call-up to the squad, a bit surprisingly, upon the insistence of Anil Kumble and ahead of Chopra. (Sehwag wasnt even shortlisted initially). It was one of the few unconventional moves by Kumble. The rest, as they say, is history. What Sehwag did with the chance was quite up to him, and based on it will walk into any current team (except perhaps the fantasy teams of aussie & some others) that cap put a couple of decent conventional batsmen around him. [ Since his return, in 20 tests he averages 60 at an SR of 92 and this includes a series in NZ, bugaboo country for him. At least 4 match-impacting knocks and that does not include his triple.]
From that list of 5 above - Gambhir is doing extremely well too. The other 3 would also be fine in some of the other test teams, fair to say. (Chopra in particular would be a solid anchor and could pair up well with almost any one but Cook). So India not having opening depth in 2007 is not a good assesment. Might have been true of several years prior to that.
p.s. At the time, I myself was aghast at his selection (over Chopra). And in retrospect, as mistaken as mistaken can be.