T20 Cricket Team: Selection seems wrong

 Cricket is a passion and a mania in India and the generation of the past fed on Test cricket with the great battles of attrition, courage and character find it difficult to exult over T20 format. Still the first T20 World cup and the first IPL tournament both either by chance or design threw up results which were to say the least unusual but entirely unexpected. In 2007, the game was unknown and the tactics and everything about it was unknown. The cricket stars of India of he time, Sachin Tendulkar, Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman thought that this was a form of cricket not worthy of their skills or temperament and they decided to ignore it altogether. India by sheer numbers and popularity of the game was setting the cash registers of world cricket ringing seemed always unwilling to take to new innovations in cricket. In one day cricket in 1975 India was one on the lowest ranked one day outfit with little experience. So T20 cricket was not on the popular sports radar of Indian cricket. A squad of youngsters along with a few experienced cricketers mainly all rounders were sent to South Africa to have fun. 


The exuberance of youth the boldness of a team with uncluttered fearless minds and the astute leadership of an unknown leader and a new untried coach created a magical result which fired the imagination of the country. The selection of that team happened by fortune or happenstance and the results were astounding. The credit of that win went mainly to Dhoni who had plans for every eventuality and who in a tied India Pakistan used the untried bowlers for super over where to everyone's surprise non regular bowlers who had practiced for this eventuality were accurate as against the regular skillful bowlers of the Pakistani team. 

The first IPL final saw a similar thing happening the least expensive team led by the redoubtable Shane Warne, a notorious cunning captain who showed Australian fans back home his unknown captaincy skills won the tournament with unknown young players. 

Cut to 2024, after loads of IPL's and World cups, India are still searching for the elusive T20 world cup second win. While this IPL has thrown up loads of talent and young fearless players, India has opted to select an aging old daddy squad who by the mere burden of expectation and cluttered minds will to my mind stumble and not play total fearless cricket where every delivery needs to be maximised and even a slightly timid approach will lead to the difference between the proverbial cup and the lip. The Abhishek Sharmas, Rinku Singhs Mayank Agarwal, Nitish Reddy, Nehal Wadhera should have been in the squad instead of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya. 

There are many more but I am not going into details suffice to say a new look team and bold selection is the way to go but I will be ready to eat my words if India win the world cup in 2024. 

Lat but not the least give me time and a great game of Test cricket I will take that anyday in place of T20 world cup glory.

Vispi Jokhi

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Mother Piroja H. Jokhi : A life Well lived!!!

Image
 A long life innings came to a relatively peaceful end on August 16, 2024 at the age of 98. Sadly, her last few months and years were painful as  dementia had set in. However, my sister her daughter and caregivers looked after her very well and facilitated a dignified end to her mortal life. The following verses from the Gita make me come to terms with the fact that physically she is no more. The real Self of my mother is alive and eternal and will never cease to exist. As I reflect on her long life I have the difficult task of putting in a few words a lifetime of experiences and also try and bring out the essence of her personality.  https://www.bmcm.org/inspiration/passages/what-real-never-ceases/                 What is real never ceases to be. The unreal never is. The sages Who realize the Self know the secret Of what is and what is not. Even as we cast off worn-out garments And put on new ones, so casts off the Self A worn-out body and enters into Another that is new. Let me do th
Read more

Dr. Burjor Antia at age 90

Image
 Today in this blog I am attempting to write about Dr. Burjorji Antia, Senior Partner and Solicitor of Mulla & Mulla Craigie Blunt and Caroe a Solicitor firm located in Mumbai in a building called Mulla House in the precincts of the iconic Flora Fountain Building. As a person from the medical field I never knew Dr. Antia and even as my father was a small time lawyer the world of solicitors and lawyers of this kind and their daunting offices were for me another world.  In the mid nineties as an Orthopedic surgeon struggling to establish practice the easiest thing was to take an attachment to Parsi General Hospital where I was potentially given an opportunity to treat and admit Parsee patients. For non Parsee patients I was told by my colleagues to get an attachment to Masina Hospital in Byculla which was considered a very old and ordinary hospital with a crumbling infrastructure and very basic equipment. In the pregoogle era Mr. Burjor Antia for me was an unknown writer a scholar of
Read more

Dr. Parvez Dara Hakim

Image
 Dr. Parvez Hakim is no more and quietly left this world on August 9, 2024. It may be a coincidence but at around 10pm on the same day I was about to write a blog on medical ethics.  I was composing my thoughts on the content and the part that role models play in shaping medical ethics came as a key part of my experience. The name of Dr. Hakim came as one of the most important mentors I had in shaping my medical values and ethics.  Coming to Dr Hakim the person, teacher and the surgeon he can be described as gentlest of gentlemen. A man of few words but mind you he never lacked in expression. I can only say that his few words were extremely effective and conveyed perfectly what needed to be spoken. He was witty and had a ready repartee at all times. As a teacher we needed to learn from him and he taught by example. He was a textbook surgeon and was always unhurried and perfect, he would achieve perfect hemostasis (control of bleeding) after every step. We residents used to joke that Dr
Read more