World Cup: List of 30 is a futile exercise

By John Cheeran
The list of 30 for the World Cup announced by the Chairman of National Selectors Dilip Vengsarkar on Friday is a ritual without any purpose.
With the World Cup only 60 days away what's the use of coming up with a list of 30?
This bloated list only gives rise to unnecessary speculation.
The tournament committee insists to have a list of 30 submitted by each participating nation.
But this does not serve any purpose.
Teams with a serious intent of winning the World Cup should have settled on their the first 16 by this time.
To have an excess to the tune of 30 is a self-defeating exercise. India with their large players' base can appease a few egos with this circus list but for countries such as Bermuda they will have to submit their entire voting list to the International Cricket Council.
India's list of 30 now includes Virender Sehwag, Mohammad Kaif and Dinesh Mongia -- players who are ignored for the first two matches of the series against the West Indies. We also have a host of newcomers such as S Badarinath, Chetsehwar Pujara and Ishant Sharma in the list.
Certainly a few of them will get a chance to play in the last eight one-day matches that India are scheduled to play against the West Indies and Sri Lanka.
The team that is announced for the first two matches against the West Indies should be an accurate pointer to the World Cup team.
As things stand now my team of 15 for the World Cup reads:
Rahul Dravid (capt), Sachin Tendulkar (vice-capt), Robin Uthappa, Sourav Ganguly, Yuvraj Singh, VVS Laxman, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Dinesh Karthik, Anil Kumble, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, Ajit Agarkar, Munaf Patel, Harbhajan Singh and Romesh Powar.