Twist of Selecting Indian Cricketers

Twist of Selecting Indian Cricketers

The mighty Australians are still not able to digest the ODI home series defeat at the hands of young Indian team and Indians are willing to keep continue to be in celebration mood for the this victory and winning of under 19 world cup cricket on the same day. As the world witness many sunrises since these two happenings hence the things started to settle down in to history book.

It is often said that every sunrise is bound to bring new hopes and new challenge together. Sunrise of this March 17th is going to bring a genuine challenge for the selectors of Indian cricket team as they have to pick the team for the home test match series against the newly ICC ranked No. 1 team of South Aferica. The twist of selection lies in the untold war of seniors and youngsters and gets more twisted turn with the report of physical trainer about the fitness problem of many players. It is fact that in the recent almost one year dominance of youth has been increased in the Indian team but no one will dare to deny the role played by the seniors in the recent victories of the team.

Forget about the selection committee because they know their job better and Indians are become habituate to bear the shock of one / two unexpected inclusion / exclusion in every selected team. Here we will try to find out the ideal composition of the cricket team.

The ideal composition of team is the five batsmen one wicket keeper batsman and five specialist bowlers with at least one batting all-rounder. Considering the Indian strength over the years with the aspect of batting and spin bowling and recent development of speedsters the ideal composition of team will be six batsman, one wicket keeper and four bowlers.

India is emerging as the new champion in the world cricket not of recent wins like the Twenty-20 World cup, beating Australia in Australia and winning the under-19 world but because of the strong bench strength on which Indians seems to be marching ahead of rest of the world.

Though it is said openers are the problems for the Indian team but look at options available for the selection committee
1. Gautam Gambhir
2. Wasim Jaffer
3. Aakash Chopara
4. Virendra Shewag

When we turn to middle order the option range become much more, wider with
1. Rahul Dravid
2. Sachin Tendulkar
3. Sourav Ganguli
4. V V S Laxman
5. Yuvraj Singh
6. Suresh Raina
7. Robin Uthappa
8. Mohd. Kaif
In the bowling department options available for the selection include the names [Zahir Khan being not fit is excluded from the list]
1. Anil Kumbale
2. Harbhajan Singh
3. Piyush Chawala
4. R. P Singh
5. S. Shreesanth
6. Ishant Sharma
7. Praveen Kumar
8. Murali Kartik
Indian players are facing the pressures of long schedules ahead of them at least till the end of this years they have to play back to back matches and series and surely it will be a true test for them to play the IPCL in famous Indian hot summer of months of April and May though the matches will be played late in the evening and will completed in just three hours but being of twenty 20 format, these three hours will be sufficient to absorb much of water from the fitness ocean of the players. Keeping all this I will pick the following 15 players [in order of batting]

1. Virendra Shewag
2. Gautam Gambhir
3. Rahul Dravid
4. Sachin Tendulkar
5. Saurav Ganguli
6. V V S Laxman
7. M S Dhoni
8. Irfan Pathan
9. Anil Kumbale
10. R. P Singh
11. Pravin Kumar
12. Ishant Sharma
13. Yuvraj Singh
14. Robin Uthappa
15. Piyush Chawala

I had preferred to rest Harbhjan just because of long schedule ahead and give yet another go for the young Piyush chawala to prove his worth. Having just one spinner in the playing eleven might also invite criticism from the giants of the game but considering the ability of rolling the arm over of Sachin and Shewag I can justify my selection however picking the playing eleven will be the right of team management who will be in better position to have measures of ground realities on those particular days of match. There is dispute over the fitness of Yuvraj and if he is rule out this ground I will prefer to include Suresh Raina, even S Badrinath who is not included in the options any where might get consideration here.