 |
| 'VVS Laxman: a wizard among muggles' - Sharad Ugra |
Krishnamachari Srikanth, who ends his tenure as Chairman of Selection Committee, BCCI, made his final selection of the Indian team last week, for the home series against New Zealand. Now he is being forced in to making one more change to that with the sudden departure of VVS Laxman.
Laxman, in his retirement speech said he listened to his 'inner-voice' and made up his decision. He wanted to give the youngsters a chance against the inexperienced Black Caps' bowling line-up. Inner-voice does exist for many people especially ones like Laxman, who spend time even for the tiniest of intricacies. But to an observer, it's plain simple to know what caused that 'inner-voice' or was it actually something from the inside that told him to leave.
That inner-voice is like an oracle spread everywhere. Two bad tours away from home for the top-ranked team in the world and the media and the public are calling for his head. The same applied to Dravid though in a milder sense. Getting bowled on countless occasions in Australia and it is enough to be termed as the end of his career. To be frank, yes even to me it appeared that they are nearing their death as a batsman. But it is to be expected. More than 15 years of cricket and nearing their forties. And continuing to be frank, if India had done well and there was no public outcry, both these legends would have taken the field against New Zealand. These are people who share a beautiful romance with the game. They have enhanced its beauty with their skills. They would never want to leave it. No inner-voice could stop this romance.
Yet something did. To cut a long story short, Srikanth and his selection panel were primarily responsible for this. When India toured England in 2011, the squad had several people already injured and a lot of players who had played a handful of tests between them. And when one of the fast bowlers opted out of the tour, they replaced him with a guy who last played three years ago. If the selectors hadn't ignored the injury worries, the settled middle order wouldn't have been needed to adjust their positions causing unnecessary instability in the lineup.
That Dravid, Sachin and Laxman would retire in the near future was a known fact for every cricket viewer since the past 2-3 years. And so if the current rotation policy (that is being implemented in the ODIs) was done for tests, we would have had Kohli, Sharma, Raina, Pujara and Yuvraj in a better state. India played enough tests against Sri lanka in recent times and also plenty of home series. The ICC's FTP is public for anyone to know who plays whom when in the next 5 years. So an England tour of such proportions (with the 2000th test and all) could and should have been better planned. If there was a backup opener who was slightly experienced, Dravid wouldn't have needed to open. And neither would Laxman have come in at No. 3. Slightly better performance in England and the mindset would have been positive before going Down Under. I am deliberately ignoring the bowling department here. It is already weak adding more pressure on the batsmen.
Again with the current selection of the squad for the New Zealand tests and the world T20 there are a few eye-brows raised.
To answer the title of this post, yes, they had to leave now or maybe by the end of this year (because I feel they should have played in front of the home crowd before they left). But we were grossly under-prepared for their departure. Now when India go into the tests, the middle-order has a void, that was to be expected but with no one prepared to fill it. Raina's knees go weak on hearing the word 'short'. Kohli is learning what temperament is, in test cricket. Rohit Sharma has forgotten who he was supposed to be. Pujara is unsure if he is fit again. Yuvraj, well the tumor apart, if only he was the player in tests as he is in ODIs.
Whenever there is a transition, the torch is passed on. But Dravid and Laxman haven't been able to do that. They have left the torch to be claimed by whosoever comes first. And then pass it on among the rest in contention.
