The BCCI announces a massive squad for the World Test Championship final and five-Test series in England, but doesn’t feel it’s important to explain decisions made for one of India’s most important tours
Chairman of selectors Chetan Sharma. Pic/Getty Images
For the first time ever, the Indian cricket team will play six Tests on a tour of one country outside Asia. This is because the India v New Zealand World Test Championship final will be followed by the five-match series with England.
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On May 7, the BCCI announced a squad of 24 players including four standbys through...you guessed right...a barely adequate press release signed by Jay Shah, the Honorary Secretary!
So, dear cricket lovers, on account of the inexplicably cagey attitude of the BCCI, you don’t get to know what basis the selectors make their key decisions on.
In normal times or rather when the BCCI decided to be benevolent, there would be a press conference featuring the chief selector and the convenor of the selection committee. Sure, these are Covid times and the selectors don’t meet physically to pick a side, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be virtual media briefings. Weren’t they organised after every match in the IPL? Similarly, in this case, the chairman of selectors—Chetan Sharma—should have been made available to the media.
Doubtless, the public would like to know officially why is Hardik Pandya not in the side, ditto Kuldeep Yadav, what’s wrong with Bhuvneshwar Kumar, what is the status of paceman T Natarajan’s knee injury sustained during the IPL and why was Prithvi Shaw not given a chance after a decent run in domestic cricket. Yes, Shaw played two limited overs domestic tournaments (Vijay Hazare and IPL-14) and not the longer version, which the England trip is all about. Meanwhile, we hear talk about the Mumbai batsman having fitness issues. A fair question at the media conference would have been whether the selectors would pick him if not for his questionable fitness levels.
Chief selectors have never been comfortable answering questions of omissions but most of them had no choice. Now of course, there’s not a trace of transparency.
No fault of his if the BCCI doesn’t feel the need for the media to interact with him post such a vital selection but the fact is that Sharma has yet to face the media.
The last chairman to address the media was MSK Prasad when the BCCI was run by the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators and it’s not that Sharma succeeded him. There was Sunil Joshi in between!
It’s exasperating to think that this is the same establishment which had to be ‘reformed’ via the Lodha Committee recommendations not long ago, but the BCCI in many ways has returned to its old ways again. And let’s not forget, a former India captain heads it. No team can be declared without his stamp of approval and to think that president Sourav Ganguly sees nothing wrong in merely issuing a press release after a big team selection shows that he is either happy to go with the flow or the realisation of what is right has not yet dawned on him.
With so much controversy surrounding the suspension of the IPL, another Board would have arranged multiple virtual media conferences with the president along with the IPL chairman by now. Talking of the IPL, India’s ability to conduct an incident-free tournament has been sent for a six and with it comes doubts over it being able to host the World T20 tournament later in the year.
That IPL boss Brijesh Patel told this newspaper hours after the IPL was suspended that there will be a probe into the breaches shows that the systems put in place were not watertight. The pre-suspension departure of Australians like Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson, Andrew Tye as well as Englishman Liam Livingstone was probably an indication that all wasn’t well with the safety aspect of the IPL.
Kolkata Knight Riders’s Australian fast bowler Pat Cummins, who donated $50,000 towards oxygen supplies, all but said that there were holes in the bio bubble. He also stressed how IPL-13 which was conducted in the United Arab Emirates last year was very well organised.
And while the BCCI will defend the move to discontinue their association with the International Management Group to handle the tournament, they must genuinely ask themselves whether their decision was a right one or were they being penny wise, pound foolish. What made it an IPL to forget was the lack of sensitivity to what was happening to the country outside the stadium walls. The toss ceremony started being embellished with messages to mourn the death of Covid victims but it was clear that the BCCI were late on the shot as it were and beaten for pace.
By the way, I wonder how many in the establishment read what former IPL boss Lalit Modi told mid-day two Sundays ago. Modi took aim from London, pulled the trigger like a seasoned, mud-stained cowboy and ensured it got lodged in the right place: “There is so much you could have done…financed the vaccine, oxygen, respirators. Build temporary hospitals, use stadiums, create that kind of infrastructure.” No matter how cynically people viewed Modi’s utterances, it showed the other side of him and he made sense. He was a brash administrator, but always mindful of the role media plays in sport. His erstwhile organisation bleeds of disrespect to the media. The recent selection for the England tour is just one example.
mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello
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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.
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