MARCH 18: You could not meet a more insecure man in the Indian cricket team than Nayan Mongia. Each time one saw him he was ready with the question: ``I am keeping well, am I not? They won't drop me. Will they?'' It was difficult to fathom this fear in the man, who at his peak was among the world's finest wicketkeepers and should have never been in any doubt about his place in the XI. The fear that he will lose his place in the side had reached a stage of pathological obsession and even made him lie to the world about his injury during the 1999 World Cup in England. He was dropped from the Indian team after the World Cup, where he had sustained a hairline fracture. On his recall to the Indian team for a brief while in Australia, he put all the blame on Dr Ravinder Chadha, who was the doctor of the team in England. In the absence of any transparency in the Board - Dr Chadha was not allowed to talk to the press - one believed Mongia. Mongia had taken cortisone injections in England which is supposed to have delayed the healing. He blames Dr Chadha for this but Dr Chadha denies having given or told Mongia to take these injections. Dr Chadha has `briefed' the Board about the whole episode and, to be frank, in this world of lies and deceit, one is not sure whom to believe and whom to disbelieve. On Mongia's exit from the team, the Indian selectors blooded MSK Prasad into the side. The judgment on him, through unanimous critical appraisal, was that he was not good enough. Despite that, the team management backed him and took him to Australia where this quiet and shy stumper did not fare all that badly. And then, he too was dropped. After having invested so much in Prasad and put a lot of faith in the Tamil Nadu stumper, it appeared almost cruel to have rejected him at a time when he seemed to be responding well to the demands placed upon him. Enter Sameer Dighe. This Mumbaikar had almost given up playing when he was asked to lead the India A side in a `farce' enacted at Los Angeles last year. To Dighe's credit, he kept wickets well there and was after that straightway injected into the Indian one-day side in Australia. Despite being over 30, Dighe showed he had fine wicketkeeping skills and deserved to be in the side. Even before he could sniff the international flavour of the game he was shown the door. The man with fear and insecurity as his friends - Mongia - was back. But only for Tests. In the longest and most bizzare muscial chairs game being played by the selectors, Dighe was recalled for a couple of one-dayers and then replaced with Saba Karim, who too has been in and out of the team for the past few years.Does all this make sense? May be it does, to the selectors or the `think tank' of the team. Watching Karim keep wickets at Baroda on Friday - the stumper-turned commentator-turned-stumper was not doing a bad job - one wondered how long he will last this time. Mongia was, afterall, not wrong and his fears genuine enough to even turn him into a `liar'. That is what a system, which lacks transparency and accountability, does to its people.
