BOMBAY, 16 April 2004 — The present Indian cricket team has been afflicted by a new syndrome and that is born out of an embarrassment of riches, especially in the batting department. Before the start of any international match, it is a question of who to drop rather than who to pick.
In the past few months, when the team’s performance had been picking up dramatically, one or two injuries to key players had come as a blessing in disguise to the younger lot and those who got a break, grabbed the opportunity by the forelock to turn in an outstanding performance. But when the big guns returned fit and ready for the fray, serious problems of selection began to surface.
On the last tour of Australia, injuries to medium-pacers Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra saw the likes of young Irfan Pathan and Laxmipathi Balaji getting their big breaks. Today, the two are the spearhead of the Indian attack. They were so indispensable that when an injured Nehra returned, a regular like Ajit Agarkar had to be dropped.
Now one is awaiting to know what the prospects of the young bowlers would be once Zaheer and Harbhajan return to the squad.
A more embarrassing situation occurred in the process of selection of the batsmen in the Indian side for the third Test against Pakistan at Rawalpindi. Skipper Saurav Ganguly, who heard his back in the one-day series, could not play the first two Tests. Young Yuvraj, a specialist limited-overs player was asked to join the Test team.
He was an instant success, scoring an useful half century in the first Test and a century in the next at Lahore.
The team management was faced with a serious selection problem when Ganguly returned to Pakistan after treatment back home in India. As captain, he had to get his rightful place in the team. But who to drop was a posed an almost insoluble problem.
In the last few months, Akash Chopra had teamed up with Virendra Sehwag to provide the Indian team a very stable opening pair after a long time.
In the last ten innings they had seven century opening stands. The selection of the final playing eleven for the Pindi Test was preceded by a long debate in which the entire Indian media joined in.
With the team management not prepared to drop any batsmen from India’s very strong middle-order, the ax finally fell on Akash Chopra. Various suggestions were made about who would take his place in the opening slot.
Skipper Ganguly gave some cryptic remarks and hinted at Yuvraj as the likely opener. But when the time came to start the Indian innings, young wicketkeeper Parthiv Patel was the surprise candidate. That the youngster did an excellent job, holding on for over four hours and scoring 69 runs. One might have thought that Patel’s success as an opener could have solved a big selection problem for the Indian team. But in effect, it may not be so. It may create more problems.
One of these is that undue pressure will have been put on young Patel, who is still to attain high efficiency in his wicketkeeping. A firm decision will have to be taken on the opener’s slot. Either it should go to Yuvraj Singh or back to Akash Chopra. By continuing with Patel as opener, Yuvraj will have to come at No. 7, where his talent will be wasted. It will be better unutilized at the start of the innings than toward the end of it.
The Indian batting talent runs so deep these days that even when two outstanding batsmen like Sehwag and Tendulkar fail miserably, as has happened on quite a few occasions of late, the team does not run into panic.
The tail-enders too are able to make decent contributions. In fact, Irfan Pathan who bats at No. 8 or No. 9, is developing into a useful all-rounder.
For many teams, it is occasional failure in the ranks that caused serious problems. But, in the case of the Indian team it is success in unexpected quarters that is becoming a cause for a problem, of course of a different time .
This problem reflects the present virtue of plenty. One hoped that this desirable riches will, one day, also filter down to India’s bowling strength.
