This aint a "I told you so" post

Team selection for Zimbabwe Tri series 2010


Last month I wrote a post about poor team selection for Zimbabwe tour.


Unfortunately my premonition about a poor series for India came true. Far from being poor, we were dismal in Zimbabwe. The sad thing is that it was bound to happen as there is no system governing Indian cricket - both BCCI and Media are at fault.


What has BCCI achieved? Are there any new finds? Have they identified any new talent which was unknown before? Have they boosted the moral of new players? Have they done justice to the fans?


Far from it. Team India has been relegated to number 3 position in ICC ranking...


On the other side of system, Media is blind even after having the advantage of the hindsight. In last few days there have been many media stories castigating the players and the team. How callous and irrelevant? They could not recognize that young inexperienced team, however talented, was never going to win matches on their own. I am sure if 1 or 2 players were part of the regular squad, they would have excelled. Alas! that never happened.


All is not lost though. We can still learn some lessons:
1. BCCI should only play reasonable number of matches in a year so regular players are rested for important matches.
2. BCCI should adopt a rotation policy to give young talent a chance and build bench strength rather than making wholesale changes.
3. Media should not become over-enamored by young talent and try to provide positive criticism.


Whether it will happen. I have my doubts but we all have to do our bit to "save the tiger"...

IPL Team Analysis

This is my first entry. I will post my views on day to day cricket events and news.

IPL season-2 will start today. Even before the tournament started, there has been lot of frenzy around it. As it was last year, there is more non-cricketing news than cricketing news. Media is calling it a tamasha. Well, is it a tamasha when so much serious money is being spent? In my opinion, barring a few good programs/articles, TV channels and newspapers have not provided good views on the tournament.

Consider this, almost all analysis about the team revolves around how many foreign players are associated with the team. The media has pronounced its predictions based solely on the quality and quantity of the foreign players. Only foreign players do not make up the team. Even if a team has 10-12 leading foreign players, a maximum of 4 can play in a game. 4 out 11 may even win a game or two but they, at max, can only influence a game. They complete the numbers but do not make the complete team. Moreover some foreign players will be available only for part of the tournament because of their national commitments.

In recent times, nationally or internationally, most team members contribute to the cause in the teams which have done well. A few examples are still fresh in our memory from IPL-1:

1. Rajasthan Royals - They won the tournament despite having no big names, on the strength of local Indian players. Even the players who were not known before the tournament, played a major role.

2. Delhi Daredevils - Foreign players, except Glenn, McGrath had very little role in their journey to Semis.

3. Deccan Chargers - Despite having high profile players and considered tournanment favourites, they finished at the bottom.

There are other smaller examples from the first edition. So the experts cannot do a good analysis unless they consider a probable playing 11.