Getting braced for more heartaches

[The Outsider]

The five wise men met in Mumbai and unveiled the ODI and test squads for the upcoming Bangladesh tour. Team selections in all sports are made with a view on the immediate goals and the future vision. In what are confusing and troubled times in Indian cricket, the team selected has been exactly on those lines. In trying to balance the short term targets and the grand vision, the selectors have made a hash of their job. Two of the biggest names of Indian cricket who also evoke a passionate response from the public, Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, have been "rested" from ODIs. The natural question one would like an answer to is what is "resting". Do the selectors feel they have had an overdose of cricket and want to give them a break? If that is the case, why a rest only from 3 ODIs spread over one week. 3 days of cricket does not constitute even 5% of international cricket India plays. Do the selectors think of it as a chance to work on their declining skills? In that case, they should not have been selected for the test matches either and could have used the time to work on their game in county cricket or even in the nets with someone like Gavaskar or Simpson providing them individual attention. Do the selectors feel a break to them can be used to try out new players? With all respect to Bangladesh, the fact remains that performance against Bangladesh will tell very little about the ability of the new players being tried out. There is nothing to be gained from the manner in which Tendulkar and Ganguly have been rested. Moving onto some of the big names that have been dropped either from the test squad or from ODIs or from both, the signals and selections are equally muddled. Virender Sehwag has never been more than an average ODI batsman and has been an excellent test opener, who has been horribly out of form for one and a half years. He finds himself out of the test squad and in the ODI team. If form was the reason for dropping him from tests, his form has been as bad or even worse in ODIs. Whats more, the selectors have not even made a like for like replacement for him in tests. The team is embarking on an international tour, albeit an easy one, with just one specialist opener. The talks of professionalism and vision sound even more hollow with actions like these. Irfan Pathan is another casualty of the jumbled selection. The same set of selectors considered him good enough to go to the World Cup, but not good enough to tour a country he has consistently dominated in the past. What could have been an opportunity for a player - who when in form offers a lot of balance to the team - has been turned into a huge question mark for him and his future in Indian cricket. The selection of Dinesh Mongia defies all logic. A player who has been exposed and acknowledged as mediocre by all and sundry will get another chance to put up another mediocre showing. If the intention of resting and dropping some big names was to given some new faces a chance this is one selection which is the antithesis of that theory. He had a very average county season last year but was given a chance in the DLF cup in Malaysia. Someone who makes a living playing county cricket was foolish enough to repeatedly keep on exposing the tailenders to quality Australian bowlers. If its attitude the selectors went out to correct in the Indian team, they couldn't have fired a wilder shot. RP Singh's inclusion in the team is equally confusing. Without any solid First Class performances in the domestic season, he has pipped proven performers like Gagandeep Singh to the squad yet again. Selections of Manoj Tiwari and Piyush Chawla once again show our selector's ambitions of unearthing a new Sachin Tendulkar despite the irreparable harm it has caused to numerous players in the past, with Suresh Raina being the latest casualty. What Indian cricket needs is battle hardened performers like Badrinath and Venugopal Rao rather than greenhorns thrust onto the big stage. Far too often we have seen youngsters without sufficient First Class experience not being able to cope with the demands of international cricket, not because of lack of talent but lack of temperament. If professionalism is something Indian cricket is striving for then it should imbibe one of the most fundamental aspect of professionalism - learning from past mistakes. There are a few positives emanating from the selection of the squad as well like dropping Harbhajan Singh and Ajit Agarkar and the inclusion of Ramesh Powar in both teams. The selectors should look into their actions and analyze what lead to these positive selections. They will find that the positives are a result of the right blend of trying to balance the strength of the team in the short term with a vision to the future. In Harbhajan's case, a non performing player was left out and replaced with a battle hardened player who has given his best in whatever opportunities came to him, has always strived to raise his game by a few notches every time he took the field at whatever level he played, and was successful in doing so. If only the entire team was selected with this approach we could finally have said that Indian cricket is taking a professional turn. For now, we are still stuck with a muddled and nebulous structure which might do a few things right but will overall just cause heartaches to the followers of the team.

[King]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches S, is this your article mate?

[The Outsider]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches Yeah submitted it to the article submission section as well.

[King]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches Good on ya mate, you are working over time. :wtg:

[omf52]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches excellent post i agree with every point. i think the selectors have tried to bring new players into the team, but are scared that if we have no experience we will lose, and so have brought out new-ish players with at least some experience, like rp singh and mongia. i dont agree with this move. resting tendulkar and ganguly is just an excuse to keep the mumbai and bengal fans happy, and is only covering the fact that they are actually dropped from odis. i dont think they will return unless india fails miserably in bangladesh (a possibility). i dont know why rp singh is selected ahead of pathan. pathan may be out of form but he has ability and talent, more then that of singh and we definately need an allrounder in the team. and fine if you want to kick out pathan at least replace him with someone promisning, like bose? why rp, yet again. more questions then answers.

[Cricketics]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches GuJob.. though don't agree 1 or 2 things u wrote, but a good-sober write up.

[yoda]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches :wtg:

[Chandan]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches Mongia and RP Singh are bad choices------we should have had Rohit Sharma and Pathan instead!

[Holysmoke]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches

Mongia and RP Singh are bad choices------we should have had Rohit Sharma and Pathan instead!

i couldnt agree with you more

[Chandan]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches Something on Shwetabh's line of thinking, Pradeep Magazine takes selection chairman as well as BCCI to task for few bizarre selections and many strange explanations! Cosmetic change, short-changing & compromises Pradeep Magazine April 21, 2007 First Published: 01:29 IST(21/4/2007) Last Updated: 01:54 IST(21/4/2007) This is a sell-out. If the Indian selectors have any pride left in them they should quit and tell the Board that from now on, they should pick the team themselves. How did a man of Dilip Vengsarkar's stature not walk out of the meeting and later, keep his calm in a press conference where one bizarre explanation after another was being given for strange selections. Even more baffling was not selecting a vice-captain, instead leaving the choice of Rahul Dravid's deputy to the captain and coach. First, the Working Committee decides to name the captain of the team themselves -unprecedented in the annals of India's history - and then it gives a directive to the selectors to pick a "youthful team". Following that, the selection committee promptly decides that Dinesh Mongia, at 30 years, is young and Virender Sehwag, nearly 29, is not old enough to be dropped. What has saved Sehwag is his great match-winning hundred against a team like Bermuda and what has not saved Sourav Ganguly his place in the team is his six half centuries in the nine ODIs innings he has played after his comeback to international cricket. And has Sachin Tendulkar been penalised for speaking against Greg Chappell or for his lack of form? No, it has to be for speaking out against the coach, who, if one goes by the Board's thinking, is the greatest thing to have happened to Indian cricket. So great has been the coach's influence on the team that within 18 months of his taking over this role, Indian cricket may have hit rock-bottom, but his methods have given the Board a great insight into how to improve Indian cricket. Perhaps they are right. After all, how low can one sink? From now on, India can only improve their ranking. The Working Committee will then deserve all credit and may be they should then take a leaf from what happens in tennis and appoint a non-playing captain. There are many in the Board who understand the game better than the players and no harm in giving one of them this job. Their own Working Committee can then ratify all these decisions. One can well understand this policy of "youth" and also the logic that Bangladesh will be the best place to groom youngsters. But apart from one or two players, which youngsters have been picked? None. It is a team full of compromises only because the Board wanted to keep Tendulkar and Ganguly out of the one-day team. Mr Chappell must be smirking wherever he is in Australia. Rahul Dravid, one believed, was a great captain-statesman in the making. But after all that has happened in the past month, I am afraid his silent acquiescence could well have him go down in history as someone who played a crucial role in the liquidation of Indian cricket. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Looks like an angry retort, specially irked by Greg Chappell!!

[King Tendulkar]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches

Mongia and RP Singh are bad choices------we should have had Rohit Sharma and Pathan instead!

i couldnt agree with you more

Sharma yes! Crapthan NO. People like Crapthan and co need to show tremendous form over sustained period of time in FC cricket before even being considered again!

[Chandan]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches This is how Harsha Bhogle analysed yesterday's selection: ?Rest? or ?drop?, idea probably was horses for courses Harsha Bhogle Posted online: Saturday, April 21, 2007 at 0000 hrs Kaif must now be wondering where he stands; Bose would surely have been there if this was an England-bound team The word ?rest?, commonly preferred by selectors when players are left out, implies a certain willingness on the part of everyone concerned. Without consent, there is no rest. The alternate word, often the more accurate, is ?drop? where there is an element of force involved. And so we need to read between the lines and figure out whether the choice of words, in the case of Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly, is meant to explain or to conceal. Did they want the ?rest? or was the decision taken for them? Reading between the lines is hazardous, and often inaccurate, but is necessary if the facts have not been spelt out. If indeed Ganguly and Tendulkar have been ?rested? will they be back in the team for the one-dayers in Ireland and England? And if indeed they are, somebody has to make way for them. Or maybe we are not looking that far ahead in which case, a delicious scenario awaits us if the youngsters do well in Bangladesh. What of the others? The most contentious will be the presence of Sehwag and Mongia. And clearly they have come at the expense of Mohammad Kaif. It suggests that the selectors needed batsmen who could provide bowling options and from that point of view, this must seem to be a horses for courses selection. It also shows up the paucity of all-rounders in our cricket. Sri Lanka have two bowlers and a wicket keeper in their top six, New Zealand have three bowlers. I can see Ravi Shastri?s role here for he has often spoken highly of Mongia on our programmes on ESPN Star. In a healthy domestic cricket scenario, Mongia would have been pushed and may have been an easy casualty if a 23-year-old had offered the same package. Our youngsters still don?t understand the importance of a second language! Kaif must now be wondering where he stands. If he cannot make the side in the absence of Ganguly and Tendulkar, then it must look bleak for him when they return. And we presume they will because they are being ?rested?. Realistically his next opportunity could be as late as November when Pakistan arrive to play a series. There are seven one-day games before that against Australia but unless he is picked for England he will have nothing new to back his cause. Harbhajan?s exit was expected. He has performed poorly and in the eyes of some looks unsettled. If indeed something is bothering him, the break will do him good, it will allow him to return to his roots and re-assess himself. He is a great performer and that is why he must have someone sensible by his side in the next few months; someone who will get him focused on performance and not on anger and discontent and other such enemies of success. I hope India find an opportunity to play Manoj Tiwary. He has come on the weight of runs and that is the only language a batsman should speak. But more than the runs he has scored, it is his aggressive, positive manner that seems to have endeared him to many. It is players like him that Shastri will be very good with. The Test squad has a few interesting selections as well. Clearly the experiment with Kaarthick at the top of the order in South Africa seems to have been endorsed. If indeed this is a long-term move, something that Greg Chappell was also in favour of, then Kaarthick must open the batting at every opportunity. Again he will benefit from speaking to Shastri, a compact limited player with a very strong mind, who made a success of moving up the order. That means there is a scramble for middle order places. For all the talk of change, India?s middle order has remained the same for the last six years, and Laxman, the most recent of the Test players, got his first game eleven years ago! It also means that seven years after breaking into the Indian team, and three years after a fine century in Pakistan, Yuvraj may not get a game in the Tests in Bangladesh. That would be fine if India were winning consistently but otherwise, a little message needs to go out that there is more competition brewing in the middle order. Ranadeb Bose would be disappointed to miss out, but I have no doubt that if this were a team for England, he would be in it. He moves the ball at a decent pace but I suspect the word has gone around the cricket world that young Bangladesh batsmen don?t like the ball coming up at them. Maybe that is why VRV Singh is in the side, but here is a bowler that everybody talks up but he doesn?t yet have the figures to back that. And yes, no vice-captain! -------------------------------------------------------- If there are no worthy candidates for vice captaincy, how can you make one? Who would you have made the vice captain? I'd have preferred to continue with Laxman as the VC of test team and would wait for one of the young guns to cement their place in the ODI side to make them a VC in ODI. How about you?

[Dhondy]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches Chandan, you credit these selectors with a thought process, a brain by implying that they actually put some deliberation into this. You'd be sadly mistaken. Like most public bodies in India, this lot are amateur, unresearched, unsure...as steeped in ad-hocism as they come. There is no method, no pattern to their thoughts, no plan for the future, no cohesion to their actions. How else do you explain the inclusion of tried and tested failures like Mongia, RP Singh & VP Singh? The dropping of a player from the Test team, who till a year ago, was hailed as the best opener in the world? The shocking abrogation of a future direction by not naming a vice captain? Even the sacking of Agarkar from the ODI team reeks of punishment, the need to find scapegoats for India's poor performance in the WC. He did nothing wrong. The mistake was not to play Sreesanth in an all seam attack ahead of that epitome of mediocrity, Bhajji. How do Piyush Chawla and Rajesh Powar get a look in? What will be their role in the team, with Romesh Powar and Kumble sure to make the first XI in ODIs and Tests respectively? Sehwag's exclusion, in particular, has destroyed any remaining interest I had in this team. He is a champion, and should have been persisted with, like Australia did with Gilchrist through his lean days. Alas...alas...Shwetabh's thread title rings so true! Is there no light anywhere?

[Sooda]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches

Selections of Manoj Tiwari and Piyush Chawla once again show our selector's ambitions of unearthing a new Sachin Tendulkar despite the irreparable harm it has caused to numerous players in the past, with Suresh Raina being the latest casualty. What Indian cricket needs is battle hardened performers like Badrinath and Venugopal Rao rather than greenhorns thrust onto the big stage. Far too often we have seen youngsters without sufficient First Class experience not being able to cope with the demands of international cricket, not because of lack of talent but lack of temperament.

WELL SAID. Even on the bowling front guys like Gagandeep and SS Paul continue to suffer. It maybe too late for them now. I do think Piyush Chawla is too young, from all accounts he hasn't developed enough variety yet and apparently his Leg break isnt all that...not sure if that is true... Venu and Badri- for sure...they should have made the side...especially in tests. It is good to see Tiwary there though, his form last year deserves it.

[Chandan]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches

Chandan, you credit these selectors with a thought process, a brain by implying that they actually put some deliberation into this. You'd be sadly mistaken. Like most public bodies in India, this lot are amateur, unresearched, unsure...as steeped in ad-hocism as they come. There is no method, no pattern to their thoughts, no plan for the future, no cohesion to their actions.

Dhondy, You might be right. Since years of following cricket in India, we know that there is no future vision, no method no plan. I would have preferred had they left those players whom you've mentioned. But maybe the zonal system isn't abolished as BCCI promised (as usual a hollow promise) and RP Singh is a token for CZ along with Chawla? Since Harbhajan was dropped (from Punjab) another one from the same state was chosen, ie, DM? And I don't think we should discard VRV Singh so early. He needs to learn few variation and needs to back his reputation of a bowler having pace and bounce by picking up few wickets. I know what rot is there in BCCI, even have a detailed plan of how to make it professional. But we fans can only cool our heels and hope for the best with our fingers crossed. We just can't do anything!

[Dhondy]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches

I know what rot is there in BCCI, even have a detailed plan of how to make it professional. But we fans can only cool our heels and hope for the best with our fingers crossed. We just can't do anything!

We can, Chandan! We can stop subscribing to such mediocrity. We can stop bank-rolling their gaudy, expensive circus. We can switch off. It's our choice. I've done it. Don't endure a lifetime of this. It'll destroy your peace.

[Chandan]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches But will it save cricket? The moment money will stop rolling in, all the politicians and businessmen will leave the posts of BCCI. Will it do any good to Indian cricket though? No! It might go the hockey way with everyone turning their back from the game. Can I leave the game I love so much? It is really difficult!

[DesiChap]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches Excellent Shwetabh :wtg:

[Chandan]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches This is what Ayaz Memon thinks: Not the most diabolical of decisions Ayaz Memon Saturday, April 21, 2007 01:48 IST Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly being rested for the one-dayers against Bangladesh may not be the most dramatic or diabolical decision taken by a selection committee in India. There is far too much cricket being played nowadays, and perhaps it is just as well that matches for seniors are rationed. This could, however, also be indicative of a shift in selection policy, as two other instances from the past would suggest. In 1971, chairman of the selection committee Vijay Merchant used his casting vote to dislodge the seemingly unshakeable Mansur Ali Khan from the Indian captaincy, and in 1990, Raj Singh Dungarpur ousted Krish Srikkanth from the top job, replacing him with the bewildered Mohammed Azharuddin. Both Merchant and Dungarpur explained that they were effecting these changes to infuse fresh blood in Indian cricket. Merchant wanted to ?catch them young?, which meant that players like Sunil Gavaskar, Gundappa Vishwanath, Eknath Solkar and Ashok Mankad got opportunities. Dungarpur, characteristically more euphemistic, claimed he would create a ?Team of the 90s?, and the biggest gainers were Tendulkar and Anil Kumble. The two teams selected for Bangladesh by Messrs Dilip Vengsarkar and Co do not reveal a clear-cut agenda for pursuing youth, but the composition of the teams suggests that the seniors will now be under pressure from freshers ? or those making a comeback ? to perform and retain or regain their place. In fact, Irfan Parthan, Ajit Agarkar and Harbhajan have not been considered for either series, which hardens the perception that the selectors have been instructed by the BCCI to make performance-not reputation ? the main criteria for being in the team. Likewise, Mohammed Kaif is still sidelined, having done nothing exceptional in domestic matches. The one quirky decision is to keep Sehwag in the one-day team, where he has struggled for months, and not in Tests, where he has done reasonably well. Perhaps Sehwag still has Dravid?s trust in him as a match-winner, and in some cases, the captain?s wish must be accommodated. Sensibly, an effort has been made to include as many potential India players and divide them into the one-day and Test teams respectively. That gives the selectors a chance to asses form and talent for the bigger series? ahead. In all, 23 players will be traveling to Bangladesh for the two series?, with only seven players common to the two teams. Not everybody will agree with all the names, but at this juncture, that is not germane to the issue. What matters is how quickly Indian cricket gets back on the rails again. _______________________________________ Hope it soon gets back on the rails!

[kumble_rocks]

Re: Getting braced for more heartaches Great Article, Shwetabh ! :wtg: I wouldn't agree on Mongia though. He did play well in the county circuit and their is some merit in his selection.