Dude., learn something .. BCCI will never change!

Man, the rant in this blog is going to hit the roof. BCCI selected teams for Bangladesh Tour. I am very sad that BCCI is such a backward looking organization that there is virtually no hope for Indian cricket sans a few brilliant player. The process, logic and methodology of player selection is so crude that it makes me wonder how at all, are we able to even etch a win outside India

After the World cup debacle, senior players were likely to be axed to assure the Indian fans. Why? Indian fans are the most obnoxious, lazy and illogical fan in cricket. Even when their team has no chance (say against Australia), they want their team to score 600 runs, bowl australia out for 25 runs.

Anywayz, BCCI president wanted 'youth' and what he and we got is nothing close to youth? Some critical examination of the 2 squads.

ODI squad: Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid (capt), Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Manoj Tiwary, Dinesh Mongia, Piyush Chawla, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh.

• What is Uthappa doing in the squad? His scores in ODI cricket are 86, 12, 0, 70, 28, DNB, 7, 52, 9, 3, 18. The ones underlined are the WI WC 2007 scores. The 5 scores before that happened in the 2007 home series against WI and SL. If you analyze, he made to the WC side on the back of the 70 and has done nothing (as in rested on his laurels). What is he doing in the squad?
• Sehwag - Needed captain's reco for WC 2007 Squad. Needed one more to make it to the Ban tour. Now, let us say he scores 3 centuries in ODIs, what do you do? include him in the test squad? I think Sehwag is the right player on the wrong team. more later.
• Gautam Gambhir - What is he doing in the squad. Do you know who he is? Lemme help. He is the guy who lost out to Uthappa on the WC ticket. He had nearly booked it till his form failed him in the home series in WI. He has never played ODI outside the sub-continent. Outside India, he averages 20.5 in 8 games with 1 fifty. If say he hits a century, are you going to take him to England?
• Dinesh Mongia - So he is youth. got it! You want to know something. Between 2003 WC and 2007 WC, mongia played 12 games and he was recently tried and 'discarded' (as only BCCI can do!) after the SA tour. What is he going to do? You know how 'young' he is? 30 yrs.
• RP Singh - Why was he not there in the squad to the WC? How come the selectors thought of him suddenly.

Correct Decisions - Dravid, Dinesh Karthik, Yuvraj Singh, Sreesanth, Munaf, Zaheer, Dhoni
Debuts: Piyush Chawla, Manoj Tiwary
Wrong Decisions: Sehwag, Gambhir, Mongia
Doubtful: RP Singh
'Replacements': Gambhir by Tendulkar/Ganguly. Sehwag & Mongia by 2 middle-order batsmen (What happened to Ambati Rayadu?)

Test squad: Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik, Rahul Dravid (capt), VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Anil Kumble, Sreesanth, Zaheer Khan, VRV Singh, Ramesh Powar, Rajesh Pawar, Munaf Patel.

The test squad is even funnier:

• Wassim Jaffer and Karthik as openers? What happened to Gambhir? What will happen to the England tour in July? If one of these openers hits a century, will you take them to England? Sehwag was the best opener we had on this side of 2000 and we dumped him for ODIs? Why? He had done consistenly well in test cricket (well .. atleast bradmansque in 1st innings!) and has lost form in ODI. So what do the selectors do? dump him for Test and take him for ODI. It happens only in India
• What both Sourav and Yuvraj on the team? There is place only for one. You could have avoided sourav here. 'rested' for tests and picked for 'ODIs'
• What is VRV singh doing in test squad? why the distribution of caps across tests and odis between the 2 singhs? what good is it going to do for either of them, except to sulk around the dressing room? Whichever of these can expliot seaming pitches will make it to England., right? But you dont get those wickets in Bangladesh, do you?
• Ramesh Powar for test cricket. BCCI has sent a strong sign that they will take only kumble for england test tour. Powar, we enjoyed your stay in Bangladesh. thank you very much

Correct: Dravid, Karthik, Dhoni, VVS, Sachin, Yuvraj, Kumble, Sreesanth, Zaheer

Debut: Rajesh Pawar
Wrong Decisions: Gambhir, Ramesh Powar, Ganguly
Replacements: Sehwag for Gambhir, Piyush or powar stays or whosoever - it doesn't matter!, Ganguly - extra opener (gambhir himself) or bowler (piyush/powar) or Kaif/new middle order guy.

Thus we see that BCCI has given a grand total of 3 new caps, has 6 retreads and retained 19 of the previous squad for the tour. This after they promised 'youth'. Neither did they deliver on youth nor did they put together a good team to take to England come july and like every other time, the players have to catch up for the mistakes of the board...