News in brief: Saturday 21 April 2007

• The teams for India’s Bangladesh tour have been announced. Read our take on the selection here and here. One right move is the inclusion of Manoj Tiwary in the side. He was on the list of our future team prospects
• Harsha Bhogle tries to read between the lines – Where Sachin & Saurav dropped or rested?
• TN take on Punjab in the finals of the domestic Twenty20 tournament.
• Peter Roebuck calls for radical reconstruction of international cricket.
• Australia beat NZ. Comfortably.
• Whatmore quits as Bangladesh coach. But he will stay on till the end of the India Bangladesh series. Meanwhile, Peter Moores has been named as Fletcher’s replacement.

-Mahesh-

Team for Bangladesh announced

Dilip Vengsarkar and his cohorts have announced the team for the Bangladesh tour. The team carries a few surprises, but I wouldn’t say I am entirely happy with the teams.

ODI team

1. Gautam Gambhir
2. Robin Uthappa
3. Virender Sehwag
4. Rahul Dravid (capt)
5. Yuvraj Singh
6. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk)
7. Manoj Tiwary/Dinesh Mongia/Dinesh Karthik
8. Piyush Chawla
9. Sreesanth/RP Singh
10. Munaf Patel
11. Zaheer Khan

The things I don’t like about this team are –

• Inclusion of Chawla in the the ODI team rather than the test team. If you wanted to include a spinner, Powar would have been a better choice.
• I think an allrounder like Joginder Sharma would have been a better choice than RP Singh.

Test team

1. Wasim Jaffer
2. Dinesh Karthik
3. Rahul Dravid (capt)
4. VVS Laxman
5. Sachin Tendulkar
6. Sourav Ganguly
7. Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk)/Yuvraj Singh
8. Anil Kumble.
9. Sreesanth/VRV Singh
10. Zaheer Khan
11. Ramesh Powar/Rajesh Pawar/Munaf Patel

Things I don’t like about this team –

• They have taken only one regular opener. Does this mean that Karthik is going to open the innings with Jaffer? Very likely. So, does Dhoni play in the team? Not sure. If Dhoni does play, then either Yuvraj or Ganguly will have to sit out. Unless Yuvraj puts his hands up to open the innings.
• Why is Rajesh Pawar in the team? The only reason I can think of is to help them practice in the nets (Bangladesh have a whole heap of left arm orthodox bowlers). I don’t see him playing ahead of Ramesh Powar. Or is he?
• What does Bose need to do to get into the team? VRV Singh hasn’t done anything of significance.

So, Is there anything I like about the teams? The answer is yes. Firstly, the selectors had the chutzpah to drop (the official word is “rest”) Sachin from the ODI squad. Although, I do not really agree with the move, the message it sends to everyone is quite strong – no matter how big you are, we may still drop you. The second thing I like is that they have not made knee jerk wholesale changes. I don’t think we could have afforded that…

-Mahesh-

Team India for Bangladesh…

The teams for the ODIs and Tests against Banglaesh has been announced by the selectors today.

ODI squad: Gautam Gambhir, Robin Uthappa, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid (capt), Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Manoj Tiwary, Dinesh Mongia, Piyush Chawla, Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Zaheer Khan, RP Singh.

Test squad: Wasim Jaffer, Dinesh Karthik, Rahul Dravid (capt), VVS Laxman, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Anil Kumble, Sreesanth, Zaheer Khan, VRV Singh, Ramesh Powar, Rajesh Pawar, Munaf Patel.

There are a few eye-raisers and a few good moves, in my view.

Good moves:

• Bringing Dinesh Mongia and Manoj Tiwary in for the ODIs.
  
• Dropping Virender Sehwag from the Test team.
  
• Dropping Harbhajan Singh and Ajit Agrakar from both Tests and ODIs.
  
• Dropping Irfan Pathan from both forms of the games.
  
• Three spinners in the Test Squad
  

The eye-raisers:

• The biggest eye-raiser is the dropping of Tendulkar from the ODIs. They have ‘spun’ it as “resting”, but I don’t, for one, believe it. He is playing with fire in the Twenty20 tournament and this dropping sends a silly message, especially when Virender Sehwag has been taken.
  
• Retaining Ganguly for the Test squad rather than the ODIs.
  
• Not including Ramesh Powar in the ODI squad ahead of Piyush Chawla in the ODIs.
  
• No specialist opener for the Tests apart from Wasim Jaffer. This is a retrograde move. They are using Dinesh Karthik as opener. Although he opened in South Africa, this is not a great move. I have a feeling that Gautam Gambhir’s name was wrongly included in the ODIs instead of the Test team!
  

Overall this is an averrage effort.

— Mohan