There is a need to hunt for cricket talent in small towns and districts

By Sudhansu R Das
Team India’s embarrassing ten wicket loss to Pakistan, eight wicket loss to New Zealand and its early exit before the IPL world cup semifinal raised many questions about the team’s preparedness, players’ selection, core strength, genuine analysis from cricket experts, coaching ability, leadership and the captain’s ability to change strategy as per the game situation etc. Though India registered the highest IPL total of 210 runs against Afghanistan, chased 83 runs in only 39 balls against Scotland and a nine wicket victory over Namibia, all these things cannot hide Team India’s lack of preparedness for the IPL World Cup.
India had entered the tournament with over confidence. The first three world cup matches exposed India’s bowling attack which lacked quality back up pace bowler and a quality spinner. India’s spin attack has improved a bit after the inclusion of Ravichandra Aswini; both Aswini and Jadeja bowled in tandem against Afghanistan. Though Ravindra Jadeja has grown into a good all rounder, his bowling on flat wickets does not help much. Exclusion of Ashwini in the first two matches was a blunder. Team India should have picked up experienced Sikhar Dhawan, Ruturaj Gaekwad and Yajuvendra Chahal in the team.
This IPL world cup belongs to the bold and the strong people with technique and extraordinary fielding skill. A mistimed shot from a batsman with physical strength can clear the boundary line for a six. Look how Chris Gyle hits sixes with effortless ease; Gyle’s technique is backed by his enormous physical strength. In the match against New Zealand our six top order batsmen were caught deep in the boundary line because they mistimed and could not clear the fence due to lack of extra strength.
Rohit Sharma has the strength and the ability to play a wide range of strokes but a quality fast bowler with swing continues to trouble him in the initial over. The team heavily depended on Rohit Sharma’s batting instead of developing dependable middle order and slug over specialists.
Virat Kohli seems to be leaving his former self as a grand finisher; he becomes clueless under pressure. Kohli depends on a straight forward “bat and bowl well type approach” to win the match. It does not always work at a high level of competition. Winning a match needs strategic thinking and shrewd moves which always store surprises for the opponents. Kohli can return to his original form and play for another three to four years without the pressure of captainship. It is high time for the team management to relieve Kohli from captainship for good reason. Each and every player of the Indian team should fight for his place and selection should be done on the basis of present form only. Besides, young players should always be tried against tough teams; the domestic IPL matches are in fact not the right place to judge the players’ ability. For testing the players against the tough teams, our top order Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli should make room for the youngsters in some matches. It will help find genuine talents.
India should hunt for tough breeds like Yuvraj Singh, Virendra Shehwag, M S Dhoni, Sandeep Patil and Kapil Dev who had raw strength, courage and skill to achieve unpredictable things and made cricket a game of glorious uncertainties. Ordinary batsmen simply crumble but those who have courage take the fight to the opponent’s camp. When a quality pace bowler or spinner spins his web around the batsman on a grass top bowler friendly wicket with good field setting, you are left with the only option to hit the bowler out of the rope. When wind blows to support the pace and swing the batsman needs the courage and the indomitable will to tame the bowler. The future cricket belongs to the fearless and strong players with beautiful minds.
The team management should go extra miles to find the right talent in small states, districts and towns. Quality allrounders who can be slug over specialists should be identified through a transparent selection process which should begin from the district level. Cricket should not be the domain of the rich and the influential people.

Comments

Plastic burning in homes threatens food, water and air across Global South: Study

By Jag Jivan In a groundbreaking study spanning 26 countries across the Global South , researchers have uncovered the widespread and concerning practice of households burning plastic waste as a fuel for cooking, heating, and other domestic needs. The research, published in Nature Communications , reveals that this hazardous method of managing both waste and energy poverty is driven by systemic failures in municipal services and the unaffordability of clean alternatives, posing severe risks to human health and the environment.

Economic superpower’s social failure? Inequality, malnutrition and crisis of India's democracy

By Vikas Meshram India may be celebrated as one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, but a closer look at who benefits from that growth tells a starkly different story. The recently released World Inequality Report 2026 lays bare a country sharply divided by wealth, privilege and power. According to the report, nearly 65 percent of India’s total wealth is owned by the richest 10 percent of its population, while the bottom half of the country controls barely 6.4 percent. The top one percent—around 14 million people—holds more than 40 percent, the highest concentration since 1961. Meanwhile, the female labour force participation rate is a dismal 15.7 percent.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

The greatest threat to our food system: The aggressive push for GM crops

By Bharat Dogra Thanks to the courageous resistance of several leading scientists who continue to speak the truth despite increasing pressures from the powerful GM crop and GM food lobby , the many-sided and in some contexts irreversible environmental and health impacts of GM foods and crops, as well as the highly disruptive effects of this technology on farmers, are widely known today.

Urgent need to study cause of large number of natural deaths in Gulf countries

By Venkatesh Nayak* According to data tabled in Parliament in April 2018, there are 87.76 lakh (8.77 million) Indians in six Gulf countries, namely Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). While replying to an Unstarred Question (#6091) raised in the Lok Sabha, the Union Minister of State for External Affairs said, during the first half of this financial year alone (between April-September 2018), blue-collared Indian workers in these countries had remitted USD 33.47 Billion back home. Not much is known about the human cost of such earnings which swell up the country’s forex reserves quietly. My recent RTI intervention and research of proceedings in Parliament has revealed that between 2012 and mid-2018 more than 24,570 Indian Workers died in these Gulf countries. This works out to an average of more than 10 deaths per day. For every US$ 1 Billion they remitted to India during the same period there were at least 117 deaths of Indian Workers in Gulf ...

UP tribal woman human rights defender Sokalo released on bail

By A Representative After almost five months in jail, Adivasi human rights defender and forest worker Sokalo Gond has been finally released on bail.Despite being granted bail on October 4, technical and procedural issues kept Sokalo behind bars until November 1. The Citizens for Justice and Peace (CJP) and the All India Union of Forest Working People (AIUFWP), which are backing Sokalo, called it a "major victory." Sokalo's release follows the earlier releases of Kismatiya and Sukhdev Gond in September. "All three forest workers and human rights defenders were illegally incarcerated under false charges, in what is the State's way of punishing those who are active in their fight for the proper implementation of the Forest Rights Act (2006)", said a CJP statement.

Jayanthi Natarajan "never stood by tribals' rights" in MNC Vedanta's move to mine Niyamigiri Hills in Odisha

By A Representative The Odisha Chapter of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD), which played a vital role in the struggle for the enactment of historic Forest Rights Act, 2006 has blamed former Union environment minister Jaynaynthi Natarjan for failing to play any vital role to defend the tribals' rights in the forest areas during her tenure under the former UPA government. Countering her recent statement that she rejected environmental clearance to Vendanta, the top UK-based NMC, despite tremendous pressure from her colleagues in Cabinet and huge criticism from industry, and the claim that her decision was “upheld by the Supreme Court”, the CSD said this is simply not true, and actually she "disrespected" FRA.

Stands 'exposed': Cavalier attitude towards rushed construction of Char Dham project

By Bharat Dogra* The nation heaved a big sigh of relief when the 41 workers trapped in the under-construction Silkyara-Barkot tunnel (Uttarkashi district of Uttarakhand) were finally rescued on November 28 after a 17-day rescue effort. All those involved in the rescue effort deserve a big thanks of the entire country. The government deserves appreciation for providing all-round support.

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Search This Blog