Snubbing the fab five suggests end of an era
Cricket fans have been left wistful, nostalgic, distraught some even angry after the selectors announced the 30 players from which the final World Cup squad will be chosen in early January. This is understandable. Five top guns Sehwag, Gambhir, Yuvraj, Harbhajan and Zaheer are missing from this list. All five were heroes in India’s superb triumph in 2011. Barring Gambhir, the others were also stellar roles players when India reached the 2003 World Cup final in South Africa.
Their contribution to the cause of team and country has been out of the ordinary to say the least. Can players of so much talent and rich experience be omitted from cricket’s biggest tournament that begins in mid-February next? In my memory, only Australia had such a dramatic overhaul going into a World Cup team, with the 1979 team bearing almost no resemblance to the one which played in 1975. But that was compelled by the defection of star players to the Packer Circus, leaving selectors helpless.
On the face of it, a young, inexperienced squad playing in ‘foreign’ conditions carries huge risk. But having looked at the issue inside-out, upside-down —every which way, in fact must say that the selectors have not acted out of ignorance, idiocy or meanness.The performances of these players over the past year and some have been uninspiring.
The countdown, so to speak, to the World Cup had begun at least a year earlier when the selectors would have started ticking off the probable informally. For those who had lost their places in the squad, this was the period to come good.Gambhir excepted, age was never on their side. But while important, age is not the sole criterion on which teams are chosen. In any case, early to mid-30s is hardly considered old in modern cricket. Fitness and form are the more important determinants in selection, for older players even more so.
This is where all five have been sadly disappointing. With a clutch of players like Dhawan, Raina, Rohit getting entrenched on the back of strong performances and so many youngsters knocking on the door of the selectors, past reputation alone becomes difficult to live by. These five had to do something special to create a fresh buzz in the cricket environment, compel the selectors to take notice. For reasons physical or temperamental, none of them did enough to tilt the scales in their favour.
They have either struggled to play, and if they did take the field, could not quite rediscover the zeal and touch which had made them such virtuoso performers not too long back.Zaheer and Yuvraj, who fought back from injury so admirably in mid-2013, seemed to taper off last season itself. Gambhir failed to cash in on his recall to the team during the tour to England this year while Sehwag and Harbhajan have oscillated between the modest and the mediocre in domestic
cricket.
The opportunities — in international or domestic tournaments came and went.Their fans were left dwelling on the past, the selectors started looking elsewhere. And there was a lot to see too as a horde of young (Axar Patel for one) and some not-so-young (Robin Uthappa, Manoj Tiwary to name only two) geared up to the challenge with intensity and ambition.
The decision of the selectors suggests an era has now come to an end. It’s kind of sad at one level, of course.Each of these five players was distinct and, at their best, brilliant matchwinners not easily replaced.But at another, it’s also a truism of life that the old must make for the new. The deeds of these five players forms a magnificent chapter in Indian cricket history which the youngerplayers now in the squad must see as inspiration. That’s the best tribute to pay them.
