Selectors sing from hymn sheet of team management

It’s impossible for any national cricket selection committee to satisfy everyone in a vast country with so many aspirants from different regions. By and large, selection of any team receives a fair degree of criticism.The national selectors have not panicked or played to the gallery in the wake of the semifinal exit from the World Cup when they sat down to pick the squads for the tour of West Indies. The Indians will be starting their World Test Championship cycle and that should make the series exciting, with something to play for. Over the next two years, the top nine Test-playing countries play for the first two positions and eventually a place in the final in June 2021.

The selectors have to not only think of building the ODI side for the next World Cup, they also have to worry about the Test as well as the Twenty20 squad, with the World Cup in the shortest format in Australia next year.

Chief selector MSK Prasad, not the board secretary, announced the squads and the best part of his interaction was he did not duck questions. He answered all with a straight face and with a modicum of honesty. Be it MS Dhoni’s future or the reasons why Ambati Rayudu could not be sent as replacement to the World Cup, leading to his retirement in a huff, Prasad was well prepared for the scrutiny.

Like most top teams have the same core group in all three formats, India should tell the top-order to concentrate on all formats and also the main bowlers. The selectors missed a chance of trying out Ajinkya Rahane in the ODIs, if not the T20s. Ever since the Shastri-Dhoni-Kohli regime thought that Rahane is not fit for shorter formats because he doesn’t rotate strike, he has been condemned as a Test batsman. In Tests also, he had to work hard to regain his No 5 spot.

Rohit Sharma will continue to press for a Test place and Hanuma Vihari will be under pressure. Virat Kohli prefers to play two pacers and one spinner when Hardik Pandya is around. Pandya is resting with a back problem and Kohli will have to go in with six batsmen and Rishabh Pant. That leaves him to play three seamers and one spinner or two spinners with Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammad Shami.

Kohli, Rohit, Ravindra Jadeja and KL Rahul are the only ones figuring in all three formats. Pandya and Pant could join them soon when the next series is played. Rahane, who could have filled the No 4 spot in the World Cup, should have been given another chance.

While everyone seems to look at the changes in ODI squad, few noticed the omission of Bhuvneshwar Kumar from the Tests. Seeing the slowing down of pitches in the Caribbean, the selectors went for the sheer pace of Umesh Yadav, possibly a Kohli choice.

Delhi pacer Navdeep Saini and Rajasthan off-spinner Rahul Chahar will have an opportunity to show they are as good in ODIs as they were in the IPL. Rahul’s cousin and fast bowler Deepak Chahar and off-spinner Washington Sundar get another opportunity. For Khaleel Ahmed it is another chance to seal a place.

Shreyas Iyer and Manish Pandey can cement their places in the shorter formats. Both are street-smart cricketers and should grab the chance.There is a feeling that the selectors invariably go with the team management. Prasad said so in so many words when he pointed out that both Pant and Mayank Agarwal went as replacements on specific requests in writing from the team management.

The selectors could have overridden Shastri-Kohli, but they would have made life difficult for any other replacement. There have been instances when the management did not play the players sent out as replacements because they did not fit into its scheme of things.(The writer is a veteran commentator and views expressed are personal. He can be reached at sveturi@gmail.com)