CricDigs Blogs

Well, our seniors - Saurav, Sachin, and Dravid opted out of Twenty20 on their own making way for youngsters. That’s quite sensible of them. And we have seen the results.

The arrangement of raw recruits lead by Dhoni seems ideal for the shortest version of the game. Fine, let it be that way.

But to exclude the three seniors from test cricket and picking up youngsters in their places would be akin to committing harakiri. Try it out, and you will see abysmally low scores and pathetic losses. It would be like putting all your money on a stock because it has become bullish overnight. A shrewd and astute investor will not do that.

No young blood can stand the sustained and slow heat of test matches without the presence of the seniors. Ruling them out of the tests, at least Dravid and Sachin, is out of question. Sachin again is reaching his peak form. Dravid - c’mon, let’s be sensible. The “Mr Dependable” is going through a phase in career that he hasn’t experienced so far. He can bounce back anytime. Mathew Hayden had a similar experience during the Ashes tours in 2005, and look at the way he played after that and in the current ODIs. Ganguly’s case is a grey area. He can be dispensed with or can be continued, as he hasn’t done anything grevious or glorious. But the two seniors - Dravid and Sachin are indispensable for the team. Test cricket is not slam bang form of the game. It’s common knowledge that experience and patience matter here.

So Sachin and Dravid should stay in the test team and instead of Dhoni somebody else should captain the test side. Dravid should be advised to reconsider his decision. Captaining only the test side is not a difficult task. This would ease pressure off Dhoni. Otherwise we will not be far from the time when Dhoni will throw in the towel. Off late the calendars have been packed with test and ODI schedules. Add to that the Twnety20 games now. Asking Dhoni to captain the test side would guarantee that we don’t shine in the Twebty20 version too. So, for tests, Dravid and Sachin are defnitely a part of the team with either Dravid taking up captaincy again or somebody else, but not Dhoni.

Now coming to the one dayers - it’s an area that requires some deliberation. Whether or not to retain the seniors. Ganguly can go, again he hasn’t done anything wrong. But to allow others in to the team he should be removed. Dravid also may follow the same fate if he doesn’t perform. Tendulkar is untouchable. Not for his reputation or records, but simply for his performance in the recent past. People may be touchy about this. But verify the ODI performances and Sachin comes at the tops. Next it is Ganguly and then Dravid because of his mysterious lack of form after quitting captaincy. So it’s either Ganguly or Dravid or both that should be dropped for the ODIs.

Players like Yuvraj Singh and Dhoni would find themselves in all the three forms of the game. Irfan Pathan, Zaheer Khan, Sreesanth, R P Singh, Murali Kathik, Romesh Pawar, Piyush Chawla, Harbhajan Singh etc. can be rotated. They can afford it as they are young. But Dhoni shouldn’t be made the test captain. His capability is not in question here, it’s just to ease pressure on him. Definitely, he would be happy to just play the tests without bothering about leading the team. He would enjoy doing so.

Having two separate teams for test and ODI & Twenty20 with some players being mutually exclusive and some being common, will be strong a recipe for success. We already have tested this. This works and to make it work more effectively two different captains are a must.