Selection of Indian Team in 2010: Few Questions Raised by Experts

There are some serious questions raised about the selection of Indian squads for the last few tournaments. Following India’s failure in the T20 World Cup 2010, Indian selectors brought a drastic change in the squad for the Tri-Nation Series in Zimbabwe.

A group of young players led by Suresh Raina was sent to Zimbabwe and the squad was missing around 9 or 10 regular players (though some were injured).

With World Cup 2011 coming nearer, Indian selectors should know a list of 25 or 30 players who should be considered for India’s World Cup squad. However, it seems that the selectors have no long term plan for Indian team. The result is that just after one series promising players like Umesh Yadav and Pankaj Singh have been left out from the squad and no body knows when they would get a second call.

Dropping Yuvraj Singh from the Asia Cup squad could be justified, given his recent poor batting form. Then the question arises why Yuvraj Singh was included in the test squad for the test series against Sri Lanka. He did not show any significant improvement in between.

Inclusion of Bihar batsman Saurabh Tiwary in the Asia Cup squad could be justified by his 50 plus average in first class cricket, but no body knows why he was not handed his debut in the Asia Cup. It was surprising that he was even overlooked for the dead rubber against Sri Lanka before the tournament final.

Virender Sehwag has fallen in injury couple of times in the recent past, but selectors showed no interest of recalling Robin Uthappa, despite the player’s impressive recent performance in the domestic cricket. Uthappa was an effective opener for India before losing his form, but now he deserves a recall.

These are the questions raised by the cricket experts in the recent months regarding Indian team selection and it seems selectors have no time to pay attention on these questions.