 TN cricketers not good enough
There has been a spate of reports in Tamil magazines in the recent past about the “alleged” injustice being meted out to cricketers from Tamil Nadu. Even you reported about an agitation organised by an organisation in front of M A Chidambaram Stadium when the Indian Test team to tour Pakistan was announced.
It is only natural for cricket lovers to fondly hope for someone from their family, city, state and zone, in that order of priority, to be selected to play for the country. However, narrow regional parochialism should not cloud objectivity and logic.
Those who are overzealous about TN cricketers should first ponder over why TN is just not able to win Ranji Trophy - let the team win the most coveted domestic tournament and then let the cricketers feel that they deserve a look in.
This apart, an objective consideration would show that most TN cricketers just fritter away their chances – and when only 15 players can be chosen for India and over 300 cricketers play first-class cricket in India vying for national colours, it is impossible for one to fritter away his chances and then claim being ignored.
Let us take some recent classic cases - Hemang Badani made a decent ODI debut for India, was chosen for a tour of Sri Lanka and given three straight Test matches to cement his place. Here was a golden opportunity to consolidate his position as the opposition bowling was no menace and the subcontinental pitch held no terror. And what did he produce – pitiable scores and, more disappointingly, utterly irresponsible strokes to get out.
S Sriram got a chance to play ODIs in Sharjah - a pitch which is a bowler’s nightmare and a batsman’s delight. The result – two failures, getting out both times to the same mistaken strokes. And, after getting dropped and turning in some fine performances in the domestic tournaments, got picked again to play, of all nations, against Bangladesh. He had a golden opportunity to have carried India to victory by notching up a big score. However, though he scratched around for a 50, the manner of his dismissal ensured that he never again got picked up.
Dinesh Kaartik – if someone gets four Test opportunities to play against the two teams at the bottom of the pile, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and fails in all four Tests, can there be any complaint about dropping the player? What is more, in all the Ranji innings prior to the Indian team being selected for Pakistan, what were his scores? How can anyone complain about Dhoni getting the nod over
Dinesh?
It is just not in the recent past that TN cricketers have thrown away chances - from W V Raman who made a fine debut, was in and out of the team and finally got a five continuous Test opportunities in India only to fail to Sadagopan Ramesh whose attitude everyone questions, there are many more examples. Only S Venkatraghavan and K Srikkanth were able to hold on to their place on account of on-field performance.
The one major difference between TN cricketers and other state cricketers is the ability to make it count when it matters – Sourav Ganguly or Ravi Shastri or M S Dhoni did not do much in domestic cricket before they played for India. But once picked for the national team, they made it count by impressive performances in their first two seasons. That is what matters. On the contrary, TN cricketers from T E Srinivasan to Dinesh Kaartik made impressive performances in domestic cricket before being picked for the national team, only to fail in the big stage.
S Ramesh talks in ‘Kumudam’ of scoring 500+ runs this year in Ranji Trophy and wondering why he is not in the Indian team. Will he ponder how much he scored in the last season and how much Wassim Jaffer scored in the same two seasons? He will then get a clear answer why Jaffer is in the team and he is not.
So, let us not fool ourselves by saying TN cricketers are being ignored – the fact of the matter is that TN cricketers do not seem to have it in them to deliver at the highest level.
N Krishnamurthy
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