If you look backwards, that's where you will go.
The Indian selectors exemplified the truism when, in picking 30 probables for the World Cup, they reversed the clock and, in the process, signaled that the Indian cricket cupboard is ludicrously bare.
One of the first reactions to the squad has come from former Australian skipper Steve Waugh -- but with all due respect to the man and his accomplishments, his comment that the Indian board gained an unfair advantage by waiting till all other nations had released their lists is ridiculous in the extreme.
If Waugh knew Indian cricket administration as well as he knows the workings of his native country's board, he would have realized that even if the national selectors were allowed to wait till the day of the World Cup to name its squad, no advantage, fair or unfair, would accrue -- as the list just released clearly indicates.
Selection committees in India are notorious for dropping clangers. The one that met in Kolkatta on Tuesday dropped the biggest one yet, when they named the 33-year-old Venkatesh Prasad, with 7 one-day games to his name in the last 25 months, to the list of probables.
It makes you want to ask the question: probable what? Comedy show?
What is even more ludicrous is the justification -- one, that he has experience; two, that he has been endorsed by MRF Pace Academy chief coach Dennis Lillee. If experience is the criterion, why not exhume Kapil Dev from the vaults? And has Indian cricket reached such a sorry state that while the captain and coach has no say in selection, Dennis Lillee does?
What is even more ironic is that while a Prasad has been revived, a Debashish Mohanty, say, does not get a look in. The quota system, they say, is the bane of India's education structure -- well, that is nothing compared to what it does to the national team.
Prasad was a member of the last World Cup squad as was Mohanty. And it was Mohanty's performance against England that saw India get through to the Super Six stage. The picking of Prasad over Mohanty this time argues that the new chairman of selectors, Mr Brijesh Patel, knows where his loyalties lie -- to his zone, as opposed to the country.
In any case, one thing is for sure -- last time round, the initial selectorial goof-up in not picking Mohanty for the probables list could be remedied by later bringing him into the squad. This time, there can be no such last minute double shuffles -- the new ICC regulations clearly prohibit players from outside the list of 30 to be included in the final 15, which has to be announced by December 31.
With seamer L Balaji looking well short of international class in the one-day game against West Indies, Mohanty would have definitely been a more interesting choice than a Prasad. Harvinder Singh of the Railways has also been ignored -- another query mark. What is especially baffling is that as many as one dozen bowlers of varying degrees of pace have been included in the squad, make that 14 if Sourav Ganguly and Retinder Singh Sodhi do their bit. Did we really need the Karnataka paceman who, even 25 months ago, was at best a slow off-spinner?
Another question that merits asking is: Are these newcomers who have been picked, Irfan Pathan, Rakesh Patel and Avishkar Salvi, actually being considered for the Cup? Or are they window dressing, there in the list simply for the selectors to tell the rest of us that they have been doing a thorough job?
The question merits asking because had the likes of Pathan, Salvi and Patel been really on the selectors' radar, why then are they not going to New Zealand, where they could be tried out ahead of the World Cup? In the upcoming series against the Kiwis, we find Bangar, Khan, Srinath, and Agarkar picked for the seam department -- surely, we all know what they are capable of (or, in some cases, not), so would it not have made more sense to try out the rookies, so we have an idea of their capabilities, and also to give them a taste of the big time and ease them in?
Getting Rohan Gavaskar a berth in this Indian lineup has been a challenge successive selection committees have battled with -- and failed. His inclusion in this list is yet one more attempt -- given that there is no logical slot for him, his naming becomes purely cosmetic.
Talking of going backwards in time -- check out Deep Dasgupta, who makes it to the list as third keeper behind Rahul Dravid and Parthiv Patel. Not, mind you, Ajay Ratra. Not even Tilak Naidu, who has shed several pounds and is keeping at international standards these days. But Dasgupta -- whose previous stint as keeper was an embarrassment of dropped chances, muffed takes, and all-round ineptitude.
When it comes to batting, and to the spin department, the names on the list hardly matter -- it is pretty much a foregone conclusion who the frontline batsmen will be, and who will form the reserves; the same is the case with spinners.
Generally, when such lists are released, they deserve detailed analysis. But who ever bothers to analyze a joke -- which is what this list is? Laugh, enjoy, move on.
