Yet another disappointing day for Indian cricket team in Australia today. I was watching the early morning telecast. Harsha Bhogle, while commenting on the sudden opportunity available to Wriddhiman Saha after the retirement of MS Dhoni, commented that there were others like Parthiv Patel, Naman Ojha and Dinesh Karthik also available for the job. I am glad that he did not include Robin Uthappa, Ambati Rayudu and Sanju Samson too in that list. While in principle all Indian wicketkeepers playing under BCCI-organized tournaments are eleigible, I find the comment terribly unfair to Saha, especially at this time when he is playing just his third test match, that too after long gaps. While Parthiv and Dinesh have been given plenty of opportunity in the past in different formats of the game, both came out as terrible keepers. Actually the batting too, both of them were touted for, especially Dinesh, fell short on most occasions in the need of the hour. Saha, on the other hand, with the very little opportunity to showcase himself, has been acknowledged by experts world over as one of the best wicketkeepers in the world and kept on piling runs in the domestic circuit. In fact, he was unfairly drafted by Chennai Super Kings in the IPL so that he was always hidden behind MS Dhoni. We all have seen what he can do with the bat as well in the IPL final last year when he appeared for the Kings XI Punjab with that splendid hundred. In the test format too, during Indias last Australia tour, he was played as a pure batsman in one of the tests, and looked a very compact and competent batsman who scored nearly forty runs in a very difficult situation. Sourav Ganguly recently said that Saha should be given a run of some matches so that he could play freely, and I feel the same. However, rules are not the same for everybody when it comes to selection of the eleven. K L Rahul can be forgiven for his bizarre dismissals in both innings in the previous test match. I know he will be forgiven for his dropped catch this morning too, one of the simplest catch one can expect at second slip. Why? Because this is just the beginning for him. We tend to forget, its also only the third test for Saha. How unfair can one be? But we know what people like Harsha Bhogle and Ravi Shastri can say and do. We have not forgotten what Harsha said of Souravs inclusion in the Indian team while on commentary (of course, before the Lords test) in 1996, we also have not forgotten how Ravi Shastri in 1999 teamed up with Barry Richards, Ian Chappell and Tony Greig to drop Sourav from the Asia team for a match versus Rest of the World to be played at Dacca, Bangladesh when players like Robin Singh and Ajoy Jadeja were picked. Sourav was at the peak of his form then in both formats, just check his string of runs in tests and in ODIs and consistency and compare with EVERYBODY else in the Indian team at that time. Because of Wasim Akrams intervention later, Sourav was finally taken in. Check out the scores of that match, if you can. Any way, I can almost sense that the path for Saha would not be smooth. There will be various things working against him. I hope he would be able to cope with the adversities and finally prove his worth in the team.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 07:25:03 +0000
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