Reinventing the Wheel: Too Young for Primetime?
Before we talk about the tragedy of Rohit Sharma, India’s latest hero after his stellar role in India’s win against South Africa, we must address the brave new world that Rahul Dravid ushered in when he announced his resignation as captain last week. Will India go for young over everything else?
Anand Vasu, a Cricinfo writer extraordinaire, has always taken a half-empty approach to India’s selection issues, and his latest column is no different. With the Big Three riding off into the sunset now, India needs to start the transition to ensure that it does not lapse into those horrible days of the 1990s, when the “Men in Blue” had yet to gain the (supposed) professional glean they showed during the 2003 World Cup.
To that end, Vasu asks Indian fans — never the most patient or understanding lot — to be, well, patient and understanding. On the one hand, I perfectly understand where Vasu is coming from. Without Ganguly, Tendulkar and Dravid, losses will be inevitable and the team needs some space to reconstruct.
The danger with taking this “reconstruction” line, however, is that selectors will be pushed to include younger and (relatively) untested talent straight out of the A teams or the various age groups (U-19, etc). India rarely trusts its domestic circuit to deliver any worthwhile players (as Vengsarkar revealed recently, when he criticized India’s bench strength), which is why it turns the Indian team into a school for talent, which is thrown into the deep-end.
Now, I understand that if you take someone young, you will have no choice but to stick with them, even if they fail (as Vasu says). But for how long? When you choose people on gut instinct, without relying on any statistical indication of performance (which would require some first-class runs), you inadvertently raise the stakes on dropping someone. “Yes, X player, 19 years old, has failed in the last three series, but he’s young,” they will say. Two years later, after more series of failing, the player, in whom so much was invested, will be dropped, and India will be no better (take a look, for instance, at M. Kaif, my hero for so long, and now left in the dust, or even Parthiv Patel).
Instead, the selectors should acknowledge that the Big Three are leaving, and that they must stop looking for the next Biggies. We do not need to pick a 16-year old and hope he turns into another Tendulkar (we were just lucky with that one, anyway). Invest in players, but only if they are performing. Once they lag, drop them, and just keep walking, no harm lost.
Take a look at Australia’s Twenty20 World Cup squad: only one player is under the age of 25, while some — like Hayden and Gilchrist — are pushing 35. And yet, they have no worries (at least not yet): bringing in a man like Stuart Clark, age 31, to make his debut would happen in Australia, but not in India. No thanks, please, we’re trying to rebuild the team, see?
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