Robin Uthappa and Some Points on Indian Team Selection

Another twenty20 world cup is now knocking at the door. All the participating teams have already announced their final squad for the tournament. India, who were the champion of the inaugural edition of the competition in 2007, are aspiring to retain the title this year. India is also considered among the top favorites with some inform players being in the team.

However, I have some question over the team selection. First of all, I was really surprised to see that Robin Uthappa was left out from the 30-member initial squad. Uthappa was one of the top Indian performers of IPL 2010. In fact, he hit highest 27 sixes in the tournament which proves his big hitting ability. Moreover, scoring runs at a strike rate near 200 is not what every Tom, Dick and Harry can accomplish. Rohit Sharma, on the other hand, made it to the squad despite having any significant performance of recent. Ray Jennigs, the coach of Bangalore Royal Challengers, also said that India would miss the service of Robin Uthappa in the twenty20 world cup 2010. His presence could fill up the gap of hard-hitter Virender Sehwag, who would miss the tournament due to shoulder injury.

Another thing that surprised me is the inclusion of all rounder Ravindra Jadeja. Well, there is no doubt, he has been in good form with Indian team recently, but the player could not take part in IPL 2010 as he was banned from the tournament over a controversy regarding his move to another club. Now, my question is how selectors can keep faith on someone who was out of action for sometime before an important tournament like world cup. Was his crime as punishable as to get banned from the entire tournament? Moreover, India will not play any warm-up game before the tournament. That means, Jadeja would go into the tournament without having enough match practice.

Selectors should have thought about it while naming him in the final squad. Even if he was good enough to be selected, then why selectors did not step up when he was imposed a ban on him.