Scraping the bottom of the barrel

for indian cricket the year 2001 began with a marvellous 2-1 victory over the world's top dogs australia and ended with a gripping series win against england 1-0. in between, the indians performed as well as they are capable of, sharing the test series 1-1 with zimbabwe and losing to sri lanka 1-2, both in their own backyards. then they kept losing the one-day matches that mattered.by the end of the year they looked jaded and the selectors have started scraping the bottom of the barrel to see if they have any worthwhile talent before they throw out the established but none-too-consistent stalwarts. the players were mighty pleased with their choice of a foreigner as their coach after seeing the indian coaches travel as journeymen. by the time the englishmen arrived, coach john wright and physio andrew leipus were haunted by the failures in the field and the injuries to players and a malicious, whispering campaign was started for the removal of the two foreigners. that is just what the new cricket board president, jagmohan dalmiya, wanted to project himself as a strict disciplinarian and no-nonsense administrator. he had summoned the former new zealand captain and the australia-born south african physio for a chat and his cronies became his mind-readers by spreading rumours that dalmiya is out to sack the two. actually, for the first time the president heard the woes of the two and promised them greater powers in deciding certain cricketing matters and add a physical trainer to assist the two. even as sourav ganguly talked about his team and the abundant talent it has to carry on for a couple of years what with three new exciting medium-pacers, batsmen and a spinner, the discerning had little doubt that the wagon would be derailed sooner than later. by the time the team goes to west indies in march, the selectors will be looking at a totally new set of players, more so because of their quarrel with the team management over selection. the selectors justifiably feel that their decisions were made to look silly by the captain and his tour co-selectors. dalmiya should tell both the selectors and the team management that they are expected to work in the interest of indian cricket and not at cross-purposes. the players, too, must realize that they are as good as their last innings. as we enter the year 2002, the english players will be thanking dalmiya for his unbending attitude over reciprocal tours as his insistence on playing an extra one-dayer to compensate for the number of tests and one-dayers india will be playing in england this summer forced the england and wales cricket board to play an extra one-dayer when they are back here after the christmas-new year vacation. they are benefited by a few thousands of pounds and the ecb thought it wise to pay a small price to its own players than suffer huge losses by way of television money if india refuses to play the fourth test at the oval. there is a lesson to the indians in this. the english team management agreed for everything provided they didn't have to travel too far to play that extra match and there's no cut in their practice time. these two things the indians hardly ever bothered to care about. the ecb would have had to pay $25,000 for the additional one-dayer the indians play in england and $62,500 for a test, but its chicken feed for the indian board which would make much more if england reciprocates by playing the additional one-dayer. but the ecb is believed to have refused to play an extra test when england come here in 2006, but that doesn't matter to the indians. an additional one-day game means obliging a voter in the board. that's dalmiya for you. he knows where the tv money is. dalmiyas major problems in the new year will be to make domestic cricket worthwhile and to make both the board's functioning and its selection policies more transparent. if andhra coach syed abid ali is sore with his own zonal selector, he's justified. he knows what it takes to get into to the india side. it is scandalous to find not one player from zonal champions andhra in the challenger teams whereas a player from hyderabad, who has not even played for the zone, has found a place. there appears room only for the sons of the state officials. what can john wright do with the players the selectors are promoting? indian cricket will progress in fits and starts, hoping to win an odd match here and there.