T20 World Cup Selection- Did we miss a trick?

As promised earlier, in this post we shall discuss in detail, the criteria of selection of the Indian squad for the T20 World Cup. Earlier, in a previous post, I had mentioned the names of the selected 15-members for the mega event.

As can be seen, the selectors didn’t have to do much to put this 15-member squad together. In the batting department, players like Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Mahendra Dhoni, Yusuf Pathan and Suresh Raina pick themselves. There is no room for any confusion there. The selection of Dinesh Karthick, as a back up to Dhoni is quite logical. More so, because he can double up as a batsman, if needed. In the bowling department, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and Praveen Kumar’s selection is again a foregone conclusion. Ravindra Jadeja, as a spinner who can bat, too was an automatic selection.

That leaves out only four places, one batsman and three bowlers (going by the logic of 7 batsmen, 6 bowlers, 2 wicket-keepers), for which, the selectors would have done a bit of brain storming.

For the one vacant batting slot, there were quite a few options, guys like Robin Uthappa, Manish Pandey, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, had performed well, were in excellent form and had done everything that one could do to stake a claim. In the end, this slot was given to Rohit Sharma, because of his sheer class and ability to bat at any position, apart from the part time bowling option that he brings in. Also, his experience must have tilted the scale towards him, which is quite logical.

Again, for the three bowlers, out of the options in Ishant Sharma, Ahsish Nehra, SreeSanth, Irfan Pathan, R.P. Singh, Vinay Kumar(all seam) and Pragyan Ojha, Amit Mishra and Piyush Chawla (all spin), the selectors have picked Ashish Nehra, Vinay Kumar and Piyush Chawla in the final fifteen.

This is where I beg to differ. My vote would have gone for Amit Mishra, Irfan Pathan and Nehra, and the reason is as follows.

I have not seen anything spectacular from Piyush in the recent past which would warrant his selection. He hasn’t been amongst too many wickets either. So far as Vinay Kumar is concerned, I had this feeling that he was going to be picked given his good run in the domestic season, followed by a decent show in the IPL so far. But from whatever I have seen of this Karnataka lad, I don’t consider him to be an exceptional bowler. He bowls at best at around 130 KMPH mark, with some movement under conducive conditions for seam bowling. But in T20s, his balls would probably nicely sit up to be hit. I have not seen the wickets in the Westindies recently, hence not sure what we would get. In any case, those pitches were never known for seam movements as in England or Newzealand. This very fact limits Vinay's effectiveness even further.

Having explained why not Piyush and Vinay, we now have to establish why Amit Mishra and Irfan should have been there.

Amit Mishra is in terrific form, his confidence is high, and many would agree that he is a much better bowler at this moment than Piyush. It always seemed that he was the leg spin option for India for past few season now as he was a regular in the test squad and has performed fairly well there. I’m not sure if Dhoni had a say there, because from what I recall, Mishra was dropped in a recent test match in favor of Pragyan after performing exceedingly well in the previous test.

The selectors also have left out Irfan Pathan, one of our most valuable T20 players. The dip in his bowling form has been working against him for the past few seasons. But what Mr. Srikkanth & Co don’t seem to realize is, whenever Irfan’s case comes up, they are falling into the trap of making a wrong comparison. They are comparing one hypothetical player (Irfan in his early days) and one real player (Irfan today) against each other. Naturally, they find Irfan of today isn’t bowling as well as Irfan of yesterday, so they don’t pick him. But can they pick Irfan of yesterday now? Then what kind of comparison is this? Should they not compare Irfan of today against RP of today or Nehra of today or any other bowler of today? If they do that, they would see that if an Ishant or a Nehra concede 8 runs per over in onedayers, Irfan would provide a much better option, for he on his worst day at office would go for lesser runs or equal, but would double up as a very handy batsman and a far better fielder than all these guys taken together.

Here is a guy who can bat anywhere in the order, has opened in tests, got a test century to his credit, won an international T20 with his bat from a hopeless situation, bowling as good as any bowlers bowl today, got international experience to his credit, yet we don’t pick him because he had once bowled better than he is bowling today. Isn’t that pathetic? We would rather show confidence over and over again in an awfully out of sorts Ishant Sharma, only because he had bowled fast in Australia!

(Mind you, I'm not in favor of ignoring Ishant completely either, what I have mentioned here is just for comparision purpose. Dropping Ishant for the World Cup T20 is the right move, full marks to the selectors there!)

As nothing seems to be working for Irfan, I feel, he should take a leaf out of Dinesh Karthick’s book. When Karthick saw that Dhoni’s rise had sealed his and many other wicket-keeper batsmen’s fate, he developed his batting skill to such an extent that he could then be picked up as a pure batsman as well. This way, he made sure that he is there in any away tour where a back up to Dhoni is needed. The fact that he provides a two-way option, has refrained our selectors to look for any other wicket keeper for the job.

Similarly, since Irfan is being ignored repeatedly, he should follow suit and develop his batting further and by doing so he could take the fifth bowler’s or in a worse scenario, back up bowler’s slot. That way, the captain would have the option at his disposal.

But so far as our selection at this moment is concerned, we are indeed missing a trick by ignoring him.Till we unearth a better all rounder, we cannot and should not ignore Irfan.