India's Dwaitham: Cricket and Beyond

By John Cheeran
There are two Indias.
Political pundits have often stressed this point, an India of the urban middle class and another of toiling masses on shop floors and farm fields. It is always a sobering thought that there is a Nigeria within India. Now another sobering thought. There are two Indian cricket teams to mirror the nation’s unique Dwaitham.
The BCCI has finally yielded itself to the idea of having separate teams for one-dayers and Tests. Well, with the move to name Mahendra Singh Dhoni the captain for the Twenty20 World Cup such intentions were clear.
Now keeping Rahul Dravid, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman and Anil Kumble from the one-day squad for the triangular series in Australia, that division is complete.
Only Sachin Tendulkar has escaped the stigma of being senile.
Well, I have been a strong believer in the Greg Chappell’s philosophy of young minds and younger feet, but the national selection committee has made its progressive cut and thrust at a wrong turn.
Form too counts in choosing an XI. To take out Dravid and VVS Laxman from the vanguard of Indian batting just when they had drilled gaping holes in the Aussie armoury of arrogance and accurate pace bowling amounts waving the white flag at our formidable rivals.
And after his repeated failures in four Test innings on the current tour what’s the point of keeping Yuvraj Singh in the squad, leave alone retaining as the vice-captain of the side.
Unflinching faith, you might say. Meanwhile MS Dhoni too had a patchy tour so far. No doubt the skirmishes against two of the finest one-day sides – Sri Lanka and Australia – will help us to find out whether all that glitters (hitters) is gold.
India’s one-day squad for the triangular against Australia and Sri Lanka:
MS Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh, Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa, Gautam Gambhir, Irfan Pathan, S Shreesanth, RP Singh Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik, Piyush Chawla and Pravin Kumar.