So, the team has finally been selected and with it end days of speculation on whether dada will be part of it or not. The celebrations can now begin. Christmas has already arrived. That’s how big the news is for a nation, which has been mourning his exclusion. Certainly the selectors have self-contradicted. But who cares….. for the ganguly fans, dada is back and that’s what matters. It’s a decision which pawar HAD to take under political pressure. His political rivals were cashing in on the negative public sentiment against him by raising the issue in parliament, so pawar could’nt have risked it. Moreover after seeing the national outcry over his exclusion, pawar smelt blood and by selecting ganguly he has now turned public sentiment in his favour. It could be of some help in the elections. So it’s a masterstroke. From the selector’s point of view, they can argue that they have gone for experience as Pakistan is going to be a tough tour. But maybe experience is an over-hyped word. Specially when u r looking for a team for the future. More on the later……
Indian cricket is at the crossroads. Things have only just started to look up for us but a few tough decisions needed to be taken. First of all, the opening pair has been an area of concern now for more than a decade. I feel, in endeavoring to find a ‘specialist opener’, we have completely missed the plot. We play 6 batsmen and a wicket-keeper and among the 6 batsmen, we have created an exclusive category as-‘specialist openers’. So when we sit down to select a team we select the 4 middle order batsmen who r our best batsmen, but then we select 2 openers, who r not among our best batsmen but r supposed to be better suited to the opening position. In doing so, have over-hyped the opening position. If sehwag and pathan can do well at that position, then why do we need a specialist opener at all(by this I don’t mean that pathan and sehwag are the ones who should be opening). If we look around in world cricket, the openers r among the best batsmen of their respective teams. I mean, on one hand we call ourselves the best batting team in the world and on the other hand, we think our best batsmen cant play the moving ball. What an irony!!!!!!!! I think we should select only our 6 best batsmen and 2 of them should be opening. Its as simple as that. I could never understand that dravid after having such a solid defence, never had the courage to open the batting for us. With due respect to his stature and what he has done for Indian cricket, I think he has done us some injustice by not opening. He has infact been selfish in doing that. But at least now when he is the captain, he should have set the example by opening regularly for us and not just as an experiment as was done in the Delhi test. In doing so, he would have proved that he is a complete team man. But he is not going to do so because the selectors have gone ahead and again chosen 3 ‘specialist openers’. I think we should have made a new beginning by going for yuvraj as an opener. He has a great technique against fast bowlers. Infact he plays the short ball as well as any one else in world cricket at the moment. With the kind of form he is in, I think he would score runs at any position in the batting order. The need to get a good start from the batsmen cannot be over-emphasized and by sending dravid and yuvraj as openers the message would have gone loud and clear to the pakis, that we mean business. Sehwag just needs to get some runs under his belt and once he does that he is definitely an option as an opener. In such an eventuality, we wouldn’t have needed to select an extra opener and in such a case, someone like venugopala rao or kaif, who are both better ‘batsmen’ than our ‘specialist openers’(however I have not seen much of Jaffer), could have got the chance to make the trip, which they truly deserve. But then, that’s the story of our country. In raving, protesting and even ‘fasting’ for the gangulys(read stars), we often ignore those, who have been on the fringes for a long time and truly deserve to get a look in.
In fact my second point of contention is that we need to decide, just how ‘sacred’ are our stars in the middle order. I mean, shall we continue to select them on the basis of public sentiment or will reason ever take over. The reason to select them or drop them might be debatable (as has been in the case of ganguly), but it still is better than a mere sentiment. I mean if public sentiment is to be given so much importance then, we can as well just launch a website were the Indian public can vote for those whom they want in the team, and those who get the maximum votes should be part of the team and in such a case we don’t need the selection committee (at least the zonal system would be abolished that way!!!). but then it would be said that only the experts should be doing such an important exercise as team selection(which makes sense). But u cant have it both ways, can you? In the present case the decision to include ganguly was a purely political one, but even if pawar hadn’t been a politician, ganguly might have made it, as some heavyweights have been clamouring, that public sentiment has to be given some importance.
If ganguly has played for India, he has not done any favours for us, its an honour for him to be playing for his country(something even he would acknowledge). The question of disrespect or insult to a player arises only when we make him bigger than the team. But then that’s probably what happens in our country.
The third issue obviously is about the zonal representation system in the selection committee. If there were any hopes (maybe there were no hopes) that there would be no regional biases in the selection process, they have now been doused as parthiv patel has been chosen as the ‘second’ wicket-keeper. This can be attributed to Mr. Niranjan Shah, who is from the Gujarat Cricket Association and wields a lot of clout in the new establishment. Bcoz if at all a second wicket-keeper was required, the slot should have gone to Dinesh Kartik, who was the favoured man for the job before Dhoni came on to the scene. In fact Kartik played a very crucial innings of 94 at the eden against Pakistan when we were in a tight situation. And in fact there is no doubt that his glove work is better than both patel and dhoni(remember that brilliant stumping of Michael Vaughan in a one dayer in england which turned out to be the turning point of the game). Somehow players from tamil nadu don’t seem to cut much ice with the selectors. Even S. Ramesh has in the past been treated rather ‘brutally’ by them. He went to Australia, didn’t get a match and then disappeared.
Its pleasing to see zaheer back in the side. However I don’t agree with the retention of agarkar. Its believed that he can move the ball both ways but ironically he never gets wickets with the new ball. Its only the reverse swing with the old ball that has of late been fetching him some wickets. His good performance in the one-dayers has probably allowed him this extended stay. It remains to be seen whether he can justify it.
All in all, if we expected the selectors to take a step forward, they have in fact gone two steps backwards. And in doing so they have proved that the new establishment is no different from the old one. If anything with a politician at the helm, politics has entered cricket in an even bigger way.