Kolkata: The cricketing world has already got its new World Champion. But the trauma of India losing the semi-final against New Zealand is still haunting the Indians. Beside that shocking loss, there has been a lot of talks of the selection committee as well as many thinks that they are the ‘Yes Men’ of Virat Kohli & Ravi Shastri. To talk about that www.xtratime.in talked with four former national selectors Dilip Vengsarkar, Kiran More, Sambaran Banerjee & Raja Venkat.
Dilip Vengsarkar: Despite of losing in the semi-final against New Zealand a lot of people is praising this team but I am not one of them. This Indian team had the potential to win the Cup but they failed miserably in the semis not only for the team management but also for the selectors as well. I don’t see any reason that you select three wicketkeeper batsmen in the team but the selectors did a blunder by doing that. The main reason is they didn’t do any work and our country paid the price. But we need to look forward and should give more chances to the youngsters like Shubman Gill, Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw & others ahead of 2023 World Cup. They will be fully ready to play at home in World Cup if they get more opportunity from now on.
Kiran More: I was more stunned after listening that Ambati Rayudu took retirement. Due to an ego clash between the selection committee and the team management the cricketing career of Rayudu got destroyed. Beside that when you have an experienced player like Ajinkya Rahane why you have picked a rookie like Vijay Shankar? Not only that the team management also sent him to bat at a crucial position of number 4. This was also a tussle between the selectors & Ravi Shastri and Virat Kohli. Though it’s now meaningless to talk about it as we have lost the final. The selectors should now start thinking about the future as this side has many cricketers who are 32 years of age. They won’t be able to play the next World Cup and that’s why batsmen like Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw & bowlers like Khaleel Ahmed, Deepak Chahar, Shreyas Gopal in the team.
Sambaran Banerjee: You have to give chances to the youngsters for future. It’s a proven truth. But with this selection committee it’s hard to get good results as they don’t have any guts to talk against Kohli & Shastri regarding the team selection. If they had power then they would have picked Ajinkya Rahane in the World Cup squad. During our time we had an agressive captain like Mohammed Azharuddin, despite of that we had picked cricketers like Sourav Ganguly, Ashish Nehra, Harbhajan Singh, Debasis Mohanti, Vikram Rathore and others. Among them many have become the legend of Indian cricket. But I think the new selection committee will look for the betterment of Indian cricket.
Raja Venkat: Behind India’s 2011 World Cup winning team our selection committee contributed a lot. The reason was we had started to plan regarding that long ago and that’s why we saw the ultimate result on April 2, 2011. We grommed a bunch of cricketers to give them chance in the tournament. I don’t want to raise any questions regarding the current selection committee but it’s true that they lacked something. You don’t have any explanation why Vijay Shankar was there in the team. Shankar plays for Tamilnadu at six or seven and you are sending him at number 4. Among the four semifinalists India’s middle order was the poorest of all. It was well known to the team management that we have a problem at number 4 despite of that they didn’t take it properly. And all the supporters paid the price for it. So they should learn from their mistakes and should give more chances to Shreyas Iyer, Prithvi Shaw, Shubman Gill and Abhimanyu Easwaran as they are the future of Indian cricket.