Is former Australia captain Ian Chappell right in saying that "India's selectors are now getting their due"?
Chappell said: "The selection committee should be sacked first. They (the selectors) have taken a very short-sighted policy for a few years now." Does Indian cricket indeed need a revamp of the scope and powers of its national selection committee, much like Cricket Australia did recently?
The Argus report which followed Australia's 2010-11 Ashes debacle recommended a total overhaul of the selection committee and advised "immediate changes" in the structure of Australian cricket.
Citing "confusing selections" as the main reason for Australia's decline following the retirement of some once-in-a-generation players, the report argued that the captain and coach form part of a five-man committee headed by a full-time chairman. India's seventh successive away Test disaster and the obvious decline of its batting giants means the country's cricket now finds itself at a similar crossroads.
The consensus is that the problems have been festering for long but were being glossed over due to victories at home. Though India's five-member selection committee is now a professional unit and the members have credibility, did a lack of will to enforce their presence at critical times - as Chappell has suggested - play a part in the team's travails?
Is it time for the Indian board (BCCI) to widen the powers of the selectors or make them more accountable? TOI looks at possible areas where selectors may have slipped up...
1. THE TENDENCY TO PROCRASTINATE:
India's 0-4 drubbing in England should have sent alarm bells ringing in the selection committee. Yet nothing was done to prevent impending disaster in Australia and nearly the same batting unit was selected again. Did the selectors fail to read the writing on the wall? Perhaps because it was so much easier to treat the failure in England as an aberration brought on by injuries? Or did they think the return of a regular opening pair would smoothen the bumps?
The dismal show Down Under means what began as a blip became a full-blown disaster. There was no plan in place, and now Indian cricket might have to deal with all senior players departing in rapid succession. Chairman Srikkanth's recent comment - "We picked the best team. We picked players who have scored 8000-10,000 runs in Test cricket and all of a sudden the top six are failing together" - reflects this confusion. Was it really "all of a sudden"?
2. WEAK TRANSITION PLAN:
Questions about a transition plan - following the impending retirement of some great players - have been doing the rounds since 2008-09, when the likes of Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble called it quits. Yet, every time a selector or any BCCI official was asked about the issue, the quick answer was that India had its replacements ready, and there were a lot of promising youngsters just waiting to shine at the Test level. As it turned out, the opposite was true: No special care was taken to groom Test specialists. The new breed of replacement batsmen remains largely untested against quality opposition away from home. There seems to be no urgency or concern to rehabilitate the injured Cheteshwar Pujara and bring him back at the earliest. The Saurashtra batsman is the frontline replacement for Rahul Dravid at No. 3. Uncertainty looms at every corner on the pace front too, with only Umesh Yadav offering a glimmer of hope.
3. QUESTIONABLE PICKS:
Some selections for the Australia series, both Tests and ODIs, have raised debate...
(a) The pace department:
Why was swing bowler Vinay Kumar, who has 14 wickets from his last 13 ODIs at 32.78 and an economy rate of 5.47, picked over the speedier Ashok Dinda in Tests? Vinay didn't look like he was Test material in Perth. Dinda, in contrast, hits the deck hard and picked up 37 wickets from 6 Ranji Trophy matches this season, with two 10-wicket hauls. Dinda's performance even led former captain Sourav Ganguly to declare that "Dinda is the best pacer in the country". Seeing how Kumar bowled at speeds almost matched by Michael Hussey, wouldn't Dinda have been a better bet? Similarly some are inclined to feel comeback man Irfan Pathan - 21 wickets from 5 Ranji games with three 5-wicket hauls, and man of the match in India's Perth Test win in 2008 - would have been a better bet than passenger Abhimanyu Mithun.
(b) Persisting with Parthiv Patel:
Why is Parthiv, who averages 24.55 from his last 21 ODIs, in the ODI squad despite his poor batting form?
(c) No Plan B for Sehwag:
The selectors, and the team, became so reliant on Sehwag for success they couldn't get past the problem of the opener not firing. Sehwag averages 29.53 from his last 7 Tests. Since December 2010, India's opening pair has averaged just 17.79 from 24 innings. This is also a reflection of the famed middle order's waning powers: they have been unable to pick up the slack.
4. STRUCTURAL ISSUES:
Rajasthan, who have made the Ranji Trophy final twice in a row, have no representatives in the national squad. It seems domestic performances of proven but out-of-form players on the comeback trail are okay with the selectors. But they don't acknowledge fresh talent until they have seen the player themselves. Is this an acknowledgment that the gulf between India's domestic cricket and the international arena is too vast to merit new selection? If so, how do the selectors and BCCI hope to solve this problem?
5. SIDESTEPPING IPL PROBLEMS:
Why do the selectors have no say when it comes to India's injured stars representing their clubs in the IPL? Case in point: Virender Sehwag, who played 11 games for Delhi Daredevils even though he needed surgery on his shoulder immediately after the World Cup. The result? He missed the start of the England series, was brought back as emergency replacement when clearly still in recovery, and subsequently lost his form. Sehwag's was probably the worst case of injury management in international cricket in 2011. Why did the selectors, in the interests of the national team, not have the mandate to prevent Sehwag playing in the IPL?
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