Bisla's omission strikes a discordant note

By G. Viswanath

MUMBAI, JAN. 8. It all looked bizarre. Haryana's Maninder Bisla's moist eyes were a just reflection on how cold and brutal can a set of selectors be. For them sieving the list of probables appeared to be a major irritant and in the process they did not think that the 16-year- old from Hissar, Bisla, was good enough to be picked in the India Under-19 team for the three Test series against England Under-19 starting at the Wankhede Stadium from Tuesday.

Bisla headed the Cooch Behar averages with 927 runs in the North Zone league and knock out and had helped Haryana win the title. He was considered to be an automatic choice in the India Under-19 team, but his name did not figure in the 15 announced by chairman of the committee Rajinder Singh Goel, who incidentally is from Haryana.

It was around noon on Monday - when 33 probables were still labouring in the nets at the Wankhede Stadium - that Goel brought an end to the hanging over the selection process for nearly a week; it turned out to be a heartbreaking moment for Bisla, tears welling up in his eyes. Yet he showed spirit congratulating and shaking hands with his teammates and others who were lucky to get into the fifteen. In the end he went up to captain Ajay Ratra and extended his hand. Ratra responded without breaking into a smile. He knew how hurt was Bisla, who will remain as one of the seven stand-bys.

Overage issue

The `overage' issue had haunted the selectors after the Cooch Behar Knock-out was played in Pune. The BCCI showed quick concern and even had a sitting of its junior cricket committee which has decided to make certain policy recommendations to the Working Committee. And after the `overage' problem came the selection process involving 33 probables.

Thankfully the selectors were able to pick the team less than 24 hours (!) before the first Test. The team will take the field on Tuesday without having a session in the nets as an India Under-19 team. ``They will all crawl'' said coach Roger Binny, when asked he was planning to have a small session exclusively for the 15 players in the evening.

Bisla is an opening batsman. He was competing with Mumbai's Vinayak Mane, a National Cricket Academy (NCA) trainee and who has made a reasonable start in the Ranji Trophy for Mumbai and also Delhi's Ranji Trophy players Gautam Gambhir. But the selectors also chose a third opening batsman in Bengal's Arindham Das, who made 461 runs in the Cooch Behar Trophy, half of what Bisla had scored.

Four players from Haryana made the team, including Ratra. The others are batsman Ishan Ganda, who made 584 runs in the Cooch Behar, medium-pacer Nitin Agarwal (32 wickets in six matches) and leg-spinner Amit Mishra (36 wickets in six matches).

The England Under-19 team, which had no clue to the off-spin bowling of Mulewa Dharmichand, will now face two more quality spinners of their age group in left-arm spinner Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan and leg-spinner Amit Mishra.

At a function organised by the Sports Journalists' Association of Mumbai (SJAM) on Sunday afternoon, Mr. Graham Saville, Development for Excellence Manager, England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said that England cannot hope for 18 and 19- year- olds to get into the national side, we are hopeful two or three of them from this squad would make it when they are 21 or 22.

``Irrespective of what happens in this series, our batsmen will leave India as better players of spin bowling. We have prepared them physically and mentally for this tour. But in November or December we cannot simulate a `Mumbai situation' in England,'' he said.

The England Under-19 team will be joined by Chris Tremlett, a 6.5`` tall fast bowler, on Tuesday morning. ``He will come with his father Tim, who will take over from me as manager. They are going through the trauma of having lost a son (to Tim) and brother (to Chris). Chris will most probably play the match in Chennai,'' said Mr. Saville.

The England Under-19 batsmen failed to cope against quality spin bowling in the three day game against Rest of India. Since, they have worked hard in the nets. This morning coach Tim Boon made his batsman practise the sweep shot - first with the tennis ball and then with the cricket ball. It appears they will have to do a lot more, use their feet, show a little more daring and put on their thinking caps to defy and defeat the Indian spinners.

The teams:

India Under-19 (from): Ajay Ratra (Haryana, Captain), Vinayak Mane (Mumbai), Gautam Gambhir (Delhi), Y. Gnaneswara Rao (Andhra), Kashinath Khadkikar (Maharashtra), Vidyut Sivaramakrishnan (Tamil Nadu), Ishan Ganda (Haryana), Parthiv Patel (Gujarat), Mulewa Dharmichand (Karnataka), Nitin Agarwal (Haryana), Siddarth Trivedi (Gujarat), Alind Naidu (Vidarbha), Amit Mishra (Haryana), Arindham Das (Bengal), Maninder Singh (Madhya Pradesh).

England Under-19: Ian Bell (Captain), John Sadler, Gary Pratt, Kadeer Ali, Ian Pattison, Justin Bishop, Andrew McGarry, Robert Ferley, Monty Panesar, Nadeem Malik, Kyle Hogg, Gordon Muchall, Nicky Feng, Mark Wallace.

Umpires: Messrs S.K. Sharma and Sameer Bandekar.

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