Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Future of Indian cricket

Headlines read " India NOT in world cup 2015". The story starts this way... India is out of the contention for playing in world cup 2015 after losing its final qualifying match with Canada in the ICC qualifying tournament held here in Sharjah. .......

And it continues with intricate details of the match played which are not of concern to us for this blog. Believe it or not I dream of reading this headline. I mean I yearn to have this piece of newspaper in my hand soon. Before you jump into conclusions of calling me a traitor or some one who hates cricket or some one who is pessimistic, I would like to explain my point.

I feel this should happen because the current Indian team, its management, coach (or no coach) and the selection process are all hopeless ( to put it very mildly). Ever wondered how many selection flaws keep happening and how poorly the richest cricket board in the world is managed. After 2007 world cup debacle we had the board taking some stern steps like linking performance with pay but for how long... Even before India played a single series they reverted back to their old ways of grading players into A,B and C grade and paying them according to their grade which God only knows was decided on which ancient match. Regarding the selection process, we know players are selected into the national team from the ranji and other domestic cricket matches.(* Conditions Apply) But how are players selected for ranji. To be a part of a prestigious cricket club in India you need to be at least from an upper middle class family. How many from the lower and lower middle class really get a fair chance to play and try for the ranji teams? And as soon as someone gets selected for ranji next target for him is to appear in the national team. And they make their debut at the age of around 20. So where is the bench strength of India team. Just to give an example how things should be , a player of Mike Hussey's caliber made his debut into international arena at the age of 30 + .

Coming back to my dream, the next day, BCCI is dissolved and all the money in it is used for conducting a national level talent competition for cricketers where anyone can participate and then a team is constituted for each ranji team from where the national team is picked up.(*Conditions Apply)

And then...........well lets not dream too much.:)


*: I am taking an ideal corruption free selection process into account for this.