No logic in team selection
"A bunch of jokers" R Us

By Murli

If the selectors really wanted to drop Sachin and Saurav, they should have done so and boldly stated it, rather than going into hiding, saying they are only being rested.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. It was in the early eighties that Mohinder Amarnath, India’s original comeback kid, described the selectors as a bunch of jokers. Twenty five years later, the Great Indian Comedy continues to roll out, and the jokers ruling Indian cricket have shown that they continue to laugh last. The team selected for Bangladesh makes for an excellent case study. Barring a few players who find themselves in, the rest of the pack come in with a question mark over their heads.

What this will do, to a team with a new coach (a part timer at that), and which resembles a big banner multi-starrer that has miserably flopped at the box office, is not difficult to guess. This team can find new ways to hit new lows. For that to happen, all that is needed is for Bangladesh to play out of its skin and use the world cup defeat of India to further give wing to its ambitions.

The world we live in belongs in many ways to the underdog. Big Bully America is being put in its place in Iraq, despite having a government of its own. In cricketing terms, it’s like Australia losing to Ireland, despite having umpires who will do its bidding! The power center in the future is said to shift from USA to China, India, Russia and Brazil.

Fifteen years ago, if someone had said India was a future superpower in the making, he would have been certified as a nutcase or as a blind, mindless patriot. Fifteen years ago, Bangladesh was not even given official Test status. Today, it has beaten India, South Africa after beating Pakistan earlier. So cricket, even in ODIs, continues to be gloriously uncertain.

About the new Team India, the biggest joke is of course the axing of Sachin Tendulkar and Saurav Ganguly. The official word is that the two veterans are being rested, for there are 45 ODIs to come in the following season. If at all, they need rest, it would be in the mid-season after they have played some games, and not when they are looking to regain their form. Once they are out of the action, what is the guarantee that they do not get rusty and fail to regain their form when they return to the team? No one is asking is this the way to treat senior cricketers who have played for the country for more than a decade. Do they not know that form is temporary, but class is permanent?

If the selectors really wanted to drop Sachin and Saurav, they should have done so and boldly stated it, rather than going into hiding, saying they are only being rested. By jumping the gun and failing to back their convictions with courage, the selectors have revealed themselves to be men of clay and puppets in the hands of the BCCI.

After the world cup debacle, the BCCI called for a more younger team and thus conveniently shifted the limelight from it, to the senior players. Having played badly, the veterans in the team had no place to hide, but does it mean you drop experienced players, once they fail in a few key games? And once this policy is put in place, what happens when the new set of players also happen to fail in a few games? Will the career of Manoj Tewaris and the Badrinaths be over before it begins? Is this the way to build a world class team in the future?

Take the sad case of Irfan Pathan, another player right now who has turned into a hot potato for everyone. After much debate, he made it to the world cup, had an average match in an inconsequential game, and now, has been thrown out of the team. No one knows why he was selected for the world cup in the first place, and why he is not shown the door? If we are to believe that this is based on the one match he played, forget it. Even the Australian systesm is not so ruthless. And it is a joke to confuse our selection policy for the Aussies. If we are trying to imitate them, it has only ended up as a poor standup comedy.

Virender Sehwag continues to confuse and confound the selectors, for all his patchy form, and has managed to retain his place for the ODIs, but not for Tests. Don’t laugh, but records show that he is more successful in Tests than in ODIs!