Date:06/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/06/stories/2008120657001700.htm

Sport - Sports : General

Strange are the ways of the selection system

The BCCI needs to
have a rethink whether they need four reserve players in the team, writes
Makarand Waingankar

Ranji Trophy is a first-class cricket championship and all the State teams are keen to have the top players play for them.

But though the contracted players with the BCCI are expected to play for their respective State teams, Tendulkar, Laxman, Yuvraj Singh and Pragyan Ojha didn’t play, citing some obscure reasons.

When asked Tendulkar said he was recovering from injury, but when the Mumbai-Hyderabad match was being played in Mumbai, he was seen practising without any discomfort. For the absence of Laxman and Ojha, the coach and the physiotherapist of Hyderabad used correct medical technology for their injuries only to be snubbed by the ‘injured’ players that they were not injured.

In fact, the media was informed that when Laxman scored 224 against Rajasthan, he had a runner for the last 60 runs.

Bad precedent

The moot question is did the Secretary of the BCCI, N. Srinivasan, ask for the fitness tests reports from the Indian team physiotherapist before clearing them for the selection of the Indian team.

If Pragyan Ojha was unfit to play against Mumbai in an important match because of shoulder problem, how has he been selected for the Indian team?

Isn’t it a bad precedent to pick a player on a day when his home team is struggling against Mumbai?

After scoring two centuries, Yuvraj was expecting a call for the Test. It was irresponsible for him to miss the crucial match against Gujarat when he is the captain of the Punjab team.

Many former Mumbai players were also surprised that a committed Tendulkar didn’t play against Hyderabad.

Commitment of old

They cited an incident from 1961 when the then Mumbai opener Sudhakar Adhikari got married at 8.55 in the morning and rushed to the Brabourne Stadium to play a Ranji match. By the end of the day he had scored an unbeaten century.

In another match, a Ranji Trophy final against Bengal, Eknath Solkar joined his colleague Milind Rege to score 70 odd runs required for his team to win the final after performing the last rites of his father in the morning!

The BCCI needs to have a rethink whether they need four reserve players in the team.

In the 1979 series against Australia in India, the BCCI had agreed to the request of the then Chairman of the National Selection Committee Polly Umrigar that only 12 be picked and the rest three be from the zone where a Test is played.

This was to afford the local players the benefit of sharing the dressing room with the Indian team.

Why deprive the State teams of their star players when they are not in the final XI of a Test team.

In fact in England a player who is not picked for a Test on the first morning of the match is relieved to play for his county.

Australians too adopt the same policy.

If the reasoning of the selectors for dropping R.P. Singh from the ODI team was to get him to bowl long spells for his team in the Ranji Trophy, the same logic should apply to reserve players too. Fifteen players for a home series is a luxury that we can surely do without.