Incriminating replay

People rushing home from work on Thursday evening to catch the Indian innings at Sharjah would have surely witnessed an unlikely sight. I...

People rushing home from work on Thursday evening to catch the Indian innings at Sharjah would have surely witnessed an unlikely sight. In lush green maidans and dusty footpaths alike, youngsters seemed more keen about getting a little batting practice than sitting bleary-eyed in front of the idiot box. Smart kids. Patience is a requisite for any follower of Indian cricket, but this week it finally gave way. Not because India notched up their eighth consecutive defeat to arch-rivals Pakistan.

Not because they once again overturned the current one-day dictum that matches are won in the first 15 overs and resolutely made sure they lost by the 10th. And strangely enough, not because the India XI refused to flex their shoulder muscles and boost each other’s spirits. For, after the dismal spring of 1999, it is amply clear that the boys are but lambs to the slaughter, at the mercy of the wise men who make up the cricketing establishment. Intent on guarding their turf, the various factions of the BCCI are playinghavoc with player morale.

Take team selection. At a time when the game is becoming increasingly competitive — with teams fielding specialists as per the playing conditions and drafting strategies based on the strengths and quirks of every possible member of the opposition — the BCCI repeatedly seeks to cover up its utter disregard for the nitty-gritty by deflecting the focus on individual players. Did India lose too many early wickets? No matter, simply change the opening pair. Did they give away too many runs? Simple, drop the strike bowler.

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It is, of course, of entirely no concern to the Board that the batsman may need a little session with the coach on playing the rising ball, that the pacer may have got no assistance from the pitch — nurturing talent is a luxury the BCCI eschews. The upshot is that everyone is on test all the time, harbouring the uneasy notion that past exploits could count for nothing, that future prospects may remain just that.

If that weren’t bad enough, cricketers, who anymohalla player of the game would know are crucial for the World Cup campaign, are being directed to earn their places till the nth minute. Rahul Dravid, the perfect anchor on low-scoring, bouncy pitches in the early English summer, is expected to slog and pile up runs on flat pitches in humid Sharjah.

Debashish Mohanty does not even get a warm-up game, but his ticket to England has already been confirmed in case Agarkar or Prasad has a bad day. And the coach, after giving the senior players more than their share of butterflies in the stomach by fielding one unknown commodity after another over the last month, declares that he prefers experience to weather English conditions.

Any wonder then that S. Ramesh, after making a hearty meal of Shoaib Akhtar and Saqlain in the Test series, now quivers at their very sight? But the selectors are nothing if not illogical, for none of this scrutiny is aimed at the extra baggage being carried by the boys, Mohammed Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja. It is time the Board wasmade accountable; it cannot be allowed to get away with the wily tactic of scheduling one series after another in quick succession, so that defeats are quickly forgotten while the odd victory is flogged for months by action starved TV channels.