Opinion Don’t get excited

While naming India’s World Cup XV, the national selectors didn’t give in to the popular sentiment and pick old favourites. Nor were they inspired to throw in an unpopular surprise. Four years after winning the World Cup at home, only four players from the meritorious Class of 2011 will travel to Australia and New Zealand to defend the title. M.S. Dhoni, 33, is the eldest in a young team where most happen to be in their mid-20s. Dhoni’s 2015 Cup side is certainly not in the same class as Imran Khan’s multi-talented side of ’92, the last sub-continental team to win a World Cup away from Asia.

To be fair, the decision-makers couldn’t have done what Imran did in 1992, because of India’s ankle-deep talent pool and Dhoni’s own falling stock. There isn’t an untested prodigy  half as exciting  as Inzamam-ul-Haq sprouting on India’s domestic circuit, waiting to explode on the international stage. Nor does Dhoni, post Test retirement, possess the Imran aura, one that allowed the Pakistan great to have second thoughts after reaching Australia and ask for a game-changing Javed Miandad-like late replacement.

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Ever since that victory lap at Wankhede, it has been downhill for Dhoni and his team. Unlike the last time, when he led men with lofty reputations to the top of the podium, mediocrity enjoys a majority in the Indian dressing room this time. The ongoing Test series against Australia, where most of those named today are playing, has shown that, but for a couple of batsmen, the rest aren’t really world-beaters. Even in the shorter version, India’s record in these parts is patchy. Last year in New Zealand, they lost the ODI series 0-4. With his back to the wall and handed a modest side of fumbling helpers, Dhoni will once again be entrusted with the job of achieving the impossible.