Selection is a farce, U-19 manager quits

NEW DELHI, November 30: The trouble in the Delhi cricket establishment boiled over today when the manager of the Delhi under-19 team put ...

NEW DELHI, November 30: The trouble in the Delhi cricket establishment boiled over today when the manager of the Delhi under-19 team put in his papers. His reasons: The team was changed for the knockout stage of the Cooch Behar Trophy in Mumbai and deserving players were dropped from the North Zone team.

Anil Jain, former Delhi cricketer, accused the DDCA sports secretary of “intentionally ignoring me and making additions and deletions to the squad.” Puran Singh, Gaurav Arora and Yogesh Sachdeva, who were in the original list of the 30-member squad, have been dropped for the knockout stage.

Jain also raises the omission of wicket-keeper-batsman Pradeep Chawla from the North Zone team (selected at Chandigarh and attended by the DDCA sports secretary) despite consistent performance at the league phase.

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Chawla, a member of the under-15 team which won the Lombard Challenge World Cup three years ago, aggregated 310 runs in the league with an astounding average of 150. He also claimed 16 victims behind the stumps. His knocks included an unbeaten 102 against Himachal, 88 against J-K, 70 against Punjab and 32 not out and 16 not out against Haryana.

However, Sidharth Verma, son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma, has been selected although he made only 108 runs. Chawla’s other colleagues, Gautam Gambhir (200 runs) and Rajan Gupta (177) have also found favour with the selectors.

In his resignation, the former Delhi cricketer says: “In the existing system of selection of teams, I find myself to be inadequate to render any worthwhile contribution to Delhi.”

The Delhi team is set to leave for Jamshedpur next week to play the knockout match, but it is without a manager.

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