Published: Oct 01, 2011, 12:09 PM (IST)
Edited: Aug 23, 2014, 02:23 AM (IST)
By Nishad Pai Vaidya
When the selectors announced the Indian team for the One-Day International (ODI) series against England, it was Harbhajan Singh’s axing that caught most attention. The veteran’s reputation wasn’t enough to save his place as his performances were a shadow of his exploits of the past. Rahul Sharma, the young leggie was named as his replacement on the basis of his parsimonious spells in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2011. In the midst of the drama surrounding Harbhajan’s axing and Sharma’s ascendancy, the other selections went almost un-noticed.
In my opinion, the selection of Karnataka seamer Vinay Kumar ahead of RP Singh and Ashish Nehra, doesn’t make sense as his performance in England weren’t inspiring enough to merit a place in the Indian team. He may have picked up the early wicket on a couple of occasions but was an easy target for batsmen when they went after him. As a result, he looked absolutely ordinary.
Vinay Kumar’s lack of pace may be similar to Praveen Kumar, but he doesn’t have the striking abilities of the latter. He fails to stop the run flow as the batsmen find it very easy to play through the line. When the ball is new, he may have the guile to restrict the scoring, but ends up spoiling his good work when it gets older. This was evident in England as he was expensive in the rain- reduced games at Southampton and Cardiff.
In six ODIs, Vinay picked up only five wickets, two of which came on debut against Zimbabwe in May 2010. In his second ODI – against Australia at Visakhapatnam – he had decent figures of 6-1-26-0 before he came on to bowl in the slog overs. Cameron White decided it was time to up the ante and started him to all parts of the ground. After the White onslaught, Vinay’s figures read 9-1-71-0. The same story unfolded in Kingston against West Indies in June this year. In defence of 251, Vinay started off brilliantly with an opening spell of 5-2-6-1. His next four overs came in the latter part of the innings when the West Indian batsmen were trying to accelerate. In those four overs he ended up conceding 40 runs which spoilt his figures to 9-2-46-1.
In England, it was an entirely different story has he was conceding runs even with the new ball. He had an encouraging start to the tour at Chester-le-Street before rain washed off the game but in the subsequent matches he was expensive up front. His career bowling average of 51.60 and an economy rate of 6.47 reflects the fact that he hasn’t been able to deliver the goods for India. It is for this reason why his selection for the home ODI series baffles me.
Unfair to RP Singh & Ashish Nehra
India’s fast bowling resources have been depleted due to injuries as Munaf Patel, Ishant Sharma and Zaheer Khan picked up niggles in England. However, it isn’t as if they do not have any other options. The selection of Sreenath Aravind is a good sign as he had a good domestic season and continued that good work into the IPL 2011. On the other hand, Rudra Pratap Singh and Ashish Nehra have been left out without proper justification.
RP Singh was drafted into the squad for the England tour as a replacement for Zaheer. In The Oval Test match he looked overweight and rusty but improved upon his fitness and his bowling as the tour progressed. In the ODI series he showed signs of troubling the batsmen as his swing returned and was bowling a lot faster than he did during the Test match. His three-wicket spell in the fourth ODI kept India in the hunt for the elusive win on the ill-fated tour.
To be very fair, RP Singh got most things right during the ODI series and it is sad that he is left out. It is unfair because he was called up out of nowhere and even though he performed decently and upped his standards, he finds himself out in the cold.
Nehra’s outburst against his non-selection is justified in many ways. He has been India’s top wicket-taker in ODIs over the last two years by some margin. He suffered an injury during the World Cup semi-final against Pakistan earlier this year and missed out on the IPL and India’s tour to the West Indies and England. In fact he had given his fitness certificate before the England ODI series but wasn’t considered. The argument against him may be the fact that he hasn’t played any cricket since the World Cup, but he has trained at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) for the past two months. If the selectors could have called up RP Singh from a holiday, there is no reason why they cannot select a player who has been working hard at the premier academy.
India’s selection policy continues to show inconsistency. On the one hand they show promise by dropping a non-performing senior player, on the other they display lack of vision by picking a player who has been a liability over two possibly better alternatives.
(Nishad Pai Vaidya, a 20-year-old law student, is a club and college-level cricketer. His teachers always complain, “He knows the stats and facts of cricket more than the subjects we teach him.”)
