Drinks Break - The Cricket Blog

Runup to the Cup - Part I

Cheer for India. Cheer for Cricket. A Drinks Break Special.

A lot has been written and said about India’s fifteen for the World Cup in April. Should Sehwag have been selected? Why didn’t Powar make it? Is Kumble the correct choice? A billion people – and a zillion opinions. So, for a change, I won’t add to the ocean of comments  and criticism our eminent selection panel has been drowned in ever since they announced the squad on the 12th.

Instead, here is an attempt to understand the steps that possibly led to the selection of the final fifteen – what an engineer would call a flowchart; and an MBA would refer to as a process.

This is a purely creative exercise and has been vetted by none of the five wise men. But as it aims to justify some of their selections, I’m sure they’d appreciate it!

Selection Flowchart

Click on the image for the full chart

 What does the algorithm land us with?
Starting Likely_XI = Dravid, Sachin, Ganguly, Dhoni, Zaheer, Agarkar, Yuvraj, Munaf, Harbhajan

The RED circles show some of the choices the selectors seem to have made …
From Alternative 1: Uthappa and Pathan (from the flowchart, seemingly low confidence in the top six batsman means that a solid number seven bat is necessary – unless Pathan plays, however, the 4 seamers option is unviable)
From Alternative 2:  Sehwag and Uthappa

Therefore, Uthappa makes it in with either Sehwag or Pathan. The Sehwag-Pathan choice in the final XI will depend on the team combination the think tank wants – the aggressive but not-so-successful 5 bowler approach or the more comfortable, but defensive, 7 batsmen one.

This accounts for 12 players, leaving three spots up for grabs, with about a dozen genuine contenders. The table shows what finally happened – and tries to understand why.

The selectors have valued Kumble’s proven record over Powar’s recent efforts; rewarded Karthik and Sreesanth’s attitude and enthusiasm; and told Raina and Kaif that scoring runs is as important as saving them.

PS: Ok, can’t resist putting in an opinion here! Feel sorry that Powar missed the bus this time – he is a genuine off-spinner and is no mug with the bat. As for Sehwag, he’s done little to justify a place; but, as the flowchart shows, if you want to play seven batsmen, his selection becomes inevitable. Otherwise, I think the selectors have done a fair job – the inclusion of Pathan and Sehwag is clearly their biggest gamble, but if it comes off, India could be a formidable opponent this summer.

At the risk of sounding unpatriotic, I must confess that I was delighted to read that Sharad Pawar’s power games have hit a roadblock, with the West Indies and South African boards refusing to back his candidature for the post of ICC president. Given that the Asian bloc (India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh) is forever at loggerheads with the England-Australia-New Zealand combine on election (and most other) matters, the West Indies, South Africa and Zimbabwe votes are typically decisive. And although Zimbabwe has extended support to Pawar, the other two votes appear to be headed the way of David Morgan, Pawar’s rival candidate from the England Cricket Board.

What prompted the West Indies Cricket Board and Cricket South Africa to take on the BCCI is not clear as yet, but by all accounts, theirs is a brave decision. Incurring the wrath of the world’s wealthiest cricket board could easily spell financial ruin for the offender. And the WICB and CSA would have been aware that the BCCI, accustomed to muscling its way to victory on the international stage, is not going to take too kindly to this betrayal. Much like American sanctions against disobedient countries, the BCCI would be exploring all the punitive techniques available at its disposal.

But revenge will not be on Pawar’s mind for some time. For now, he would be more involved with lobbying to win support from associate members of the ICC – his last shot at upstaging Morgan. If he fails, another David would have felled a mighty Goliath. But it’s not the romanticism of an underdog’s victory that we should celebrate.
 
We should instead celebrate that an inept cricket administrator has been kept out of world cricket’s most responsible office. A man, who swept to the helm of the BCCI on the back of an exciting manifesto, has failed to deliver on his promises – now it’s only fair that his ambitions of presiding over the ICC are spiked.

This may appear to be an unduly harsh assessment of Pawar’s performance. After all, we’ve been endlessly informed about the multiple multi-million dollar deals that have been struck during his tenure, swelling the BCCI’s coffers to unprecedented levels. It is undeniable that the rich board has got much richer. Unfortunately for Indian cricket, that is all it has achieved.

Ugly witch-hunts against political opponents have taken priority over the promised professionalization of the administration. Confidential reports and emails now leak almost as a matter of regulation, and the board chief doesn’t see anything improper in “putting in a word” for certain players to the selectors. Pay checks of domestic cricketers have not increased in accordance with what was pledged, and stadia and infrastructure in the country largely remain in the despicable state that they were in before. The selection committee chief says there is “no new talent” in India, but pumping funds aggressively into talent development is a thought that hasn’t crossed Pawar’s mind.

To be fair, Jagmohan Dalmiya, the ICC’s only other Indian president, could have been accused of all these shortcomings and more. But at the time, his marketing acumen was lifesaving for a cash-starved ICC. The ICC now finds itself in a comfortable financial position, so the only skill Pawar has on his cricketing CV is unlikely to be of significant use to them – especially as it will be available only when he is not discharging his responsibilities as Union Agriculture Minister, chief of the Nationalist Congress Party and sugar industry baron in Maharashtra.

With umpiring controversies, racial slurs, ball tampering allegations and now even match-fixing dogging the game, the ICC is in need of dynamic, able and transparent leadership. A barrel of empty promises like Sharad Pawar is not the solution.