The Wall – now cornered

And the present now will soon be the past
The order is rapidly fading
The first one now will later be last
For the times, they are a changing

Words of significance? Dilip Vengsarkar’s pet these days.

Not long days ago Rahul Dravid was at the helm of affairs of Indian cricket, 45 days on the same gentleman finds himself out of the Indian ODI team, 10,000+ ODI runs notwithstanding. The selection committee maintains Dravid has been 'rested' for the first two ODIs against Pakistan beginning next month. Even those who follow the game once in a while would know that 'rested' is a euphemism for dropped. Dravid’s exclusion comes on the back of a string of low scores in the last 8 ODIs. Reason enough?

Surely, one failed series is no indicator of a suddenly arrived old-age or the lack of class and hunger for runs, then what goes inside the minds of Vengsarkar and his men? Is it the twenty-20 triumph that has gone in to the selectors’ heads? Or, is it a genuine step towards building a team for the future? I suspect the former; it’s easy for the selectors to shrug off dismal performances of the past by blaming the seniors in the team. As one journo noted the prevailing attitude, if Zaheer fails to bowl line and length the seniors are to blame, if the team gets tonked for 300+ scores every time the seniors are to blame, if Yuvraj Singh drops a catch even then the seniors are too blame. (I hope our politicians aren’t yet aware of this.)

While there is no gainsaying the fact that Dravid, Tendulkar and Ganguly are at the fag end of their careers and sooner than later there will be a lot of hung boots, but does that warrant the treatment meted out to Dravid or the pressure thrust on the seniors? Indian cricket has been way too unpredictable on the field and its administrators equally autocratic off it, little surprise then the board is yet to find a suitable coach.

Rahul Dravid has always been known as the team man, who gave his all to Indian Cricket; when the time came to pay him back, Indian cricket turned its back on him, the least they could have done was to have faith in him. Sure enough the Bangalorean has a lot of cricket left in him and will make his way back into the team, but things like these leave a bad taste in the mouth.

The next time Sachin and Ganguly take stance, their minds will be pondering over what Mr. Vengsarkar has up his sleeve? Are we next?