What will get you the Team India Cap?

Less than a month is left for Indian tour of the Caribbean. It’s going to be a lot of Cricket for the Indian team in months to come. Right after the IPL Indian team flies to West Indies for 1 T-20 Match, 5ODI’s and 3 Test Matches and from there the flight takes off to England for 4 tests, 2 T-20 matches and 5 ODI’s, this is surely going to get hectic for Team India. But BCCI should be given credit for their correct and systematic planning for the tour. Where India after long IPL start WI tour with T-20 match followed by 5 ODI’s and then 3 Test matches and then England tour starts with Test Matches and then followed by T-20s and ODI’s. So there is complete planning which would benefit Team India on their Tour as they can get into one mould of the game. The selection committee led by Kris Srikkanth is scheduled to meet on Friday along with captain MS and coach Fletcher to decide on the team that will play T-20 and ODI’s in WI.

There are stories going around that many Indian players have asked for rest after a long World Cup and longer IPL. Players like MS Dhoni, Zaheer Khan, Sachin Tendulkar and Virendar Sehwag are surely not getting into that plane to WI for initial part of the tour. Whereas Gautam Gambhir is looked upon to lead the side having World Cup winning members like Yuvraj Singh, Virat Kohli, Suresh Raina, Yusuf Pathan, Munaf Patel and Harbhajan Singh. So this actually gives chance to many young players to make a mark at International level. This would be the ideal chance for youngsters to get into the Team as it’s going to be difficult to break into the full strength Indian team after the WC win.

So this starts the biggest ever debate of whom should be selected and who should be dropped. Everyone has their view on this, as already a lot of debate is happening and has happened on this topic. So let me fuel this debate a little further by giving my side of the debate. Rather than on who should be selected I would like to discuss what should be the criteria for selection in Team India.

Should only IPL be the criteria for the selection or only Ranji cricket should be the criteria.

I am of an opinion that the neither should be the sole criteria for Team India cap. IPL is part of Indian domestic circuit just like other tournaments like Ranji Super League, Ranji Trophy Plate, Deodhar Trophy, Duleep Trophy, Challenger Trophy, Irani Cup, Syed Musthaq Ali Trophy, BCCI Corporate Trophy and Vijay Hazare Trophy. The performance over the entire season should be made the bench mark for Team India cap rather than just performance of one tournament should be used as criteria for selection. Our domestic tournament has good mix of four day matches, One Day matches and T-20 Matches so it gives an ample opportunity for a player to prove his worth and helps him to prove his case for the prestigious Team India Cap. If IPL is considered a yardstick for Team India Cap  then consistency over the entire IPL should be considered rather than one, two, three or four good performances in IPL 

Someone like Rahul Sharma has been performing very well for his IPL side PWI but if you see his performance over the entire season it isn’t much inspiring similarly someone like Subramanium Badrinath, Manoj Tiwary and Ambati Rayadu who have performed well in the entire season, they have performed well in all the domestic tournaments for their respective teams.

A player should be consistent over a period of time rather than just for one tournament. Even International Cricket works on consistency rather than one tournament success For E.g.: A team winning one tournament does not make them the number one team in international cricket, to be number one, a team needs to consistently play well like Team India won the World Cup 2011 does not make them the number one team because may be some other team has been more consistent than them and similarly like Team India is number one in tests it’s not  that they have been ranked number one after one series they have consistently won matches around the globe to deserve that place of number one team in tests. Even the individual rankings work the same way, certainly playing well in one tournament gives you points but overall performance along the year is of much more importance. I somehow feel BCCI should start with local rankings, ranking players according to their performance over the period that will help to have a better view of the performance of local talent. I haven’t used much statistics to put forth my point because it would have made it long, and longer the post it’s considered to be boring.

IPL has also proved one thing or rather have proved many people wrong, people across the globe feel the shorter the version of the game more exciting it is, but the number of one sided matches in IPL proves even the shortest version of the game can be boring. I have found 2 reasons for the one sided matches in IPL may be I will use my next post to give my view on  why we are having so many one sided matches in IPL 2011.

Glance at Cricket World.

It’s been 34 days since India were crowned the world champions. But I somehow don’t remember M.S.Dhoni lifting the trophy and on the contrary I can easily recollect Kapil Dev lifting the trophy in 1983 on that historic Lords ground. One reason for this I feel is too much off cricket. Even the cricketers along with the fans would agree that there was not enough time to enjoy the World Cup Triumph. The gap between the World Cup Final and 1^st match of IPL was 5 days, which I feel was a little too less to get out of the Victory Hangover.

IPL IV had a fairytale start, first few matches were very exciting and almost all the initial games went down to the wire. But as the time has gone the popularity and the TRP of IPL IV has fallen down considerably, may be the popularity and TRP would increase in later stages of IPL IV when IPL reaches its business end of the tournament. It’s very surprising people who voiced their opinion and were against about the length of the World Cup and believed number of meaningless matches are very high, but they have not said anything about the lengthy IPL. The main reason for the lack of interest in IPL is because it’s been a lengthy tournament and also the confusing format of IPL IV. It’s already been 47 matches and still we have another 23 matches in league stage and then 4 matches in qualifying stage that makes another 27 matches to go. One thing which has benefited IPL IV unlike previous editions in this IPL no one team has dominated the matches; it’s been the most open IPL out of the 3 previous editions. But teams having inspiring captains have done well as compared to make shift captains or captains who are not that reluctant to captain the side.

One of the reactions of a lengthy and little boring IPL is, many people have started to surf the internet to know when and where is India playing next.

But I feel for Cricket Lovers there is never over dose of it.

It’s been more than 1 month that World Cup is over there has been some news which has taken the Cricket World by surprise.

Duncan Fletchers appointment as Team India Coach, there has been many Ex-Indian Cricketers airing their opinion about his appointment. So I don’t feel it requires any more discussion, and we all should back the decision which is been taken now.

England’s 3 way vote of confidence. ECB has appointed 3 different captains for 3 different versions of the game. Where twice Ashes winning captain Andrew Strauss continues to captain the England test team. Alastair Cook who’s not considered to be a One Day player by the selectors is given the job of captaining the One Day side and the 24 year old Stuart Broad will lead the England Lions in Twenty-20 matches. Two things which has taken me by surprise here is 1^st being why was A. Cook dropped from One Day team and 2^nd being since he is not part of one day team what has he done to be made captain of the side. Baffling to say the least, but it’s a good choice specially the Twenty-20 Captain Broad is a good choice, this man has been hit for 6 Sixes in an over so he knows it can’t get worse that this on the field if things don’t go in his favour.

The problem between WICB and West Indian players continues, it’s a never ending war. I wish they can show such never dying spirit on the field. Pakistan has beaten WI 3-2 in 5 match One Day series.

Australian tour of South Africa later in the year is been shortened because of the Champions League in India. There is plan to fit in 2tests, 2 Twenty-20 matches and 3 ODI’s. So the cash rich league is taking its toll on the number of tests played across the world.

The biggest news of all and heart breaking news for me personally is retirement of Shane Warne from IPL or rather from all forms of cricket after the end of IVth season. This news has certainly come as a shock to many cricket lovers as Warne was playing pretty well and was fit enough to play for some more time to come. But it’s his personal decision as the decision of retiring completely depend on the player as the player is the best judge of his body and fitness levels. I hope Warne continues to be part of the RR in some way or the other as he has been guiding light for many an Indian Local Players. Warne was the person who brought the art of leg spin back to the world cricket and he made it a fashion among many aspiring cricketers. If you recount his performance in his debut test against India at Sydney he was slaughtered by Ravi Shastri, where Warne’s figure read 1/150 off 45 overs, where Ravi made 206, but eventually Ravi was dismissed by Warne caught by Dean Jones. So if you think of his debut test and today if you consider what all he has achieved he certainly has come a long long way. A true champion and who has the ability to make a hero out of nothing. Long Live the Legend.