India's team for West Indies announced

Rating: 8.25/10
Written by: Suneer Chowdhary
Sport: cricket
Genre: news

Thursday, June 18, 2009 -- India’s team to go to West Indies for a four ODI and one T20I series has been announced and the side will not have the services of Sachin Tendulkar and Zaheer Khan for the tournament. Virender Sehwag, whose exclusion had caused controversy in the ICC World T20 has also been rested, as has Suresh Raina who suffered from a hairline fracture on his thumb during the tournament.

Instead, the side has a reasonably new look, with the return of Ashish Nehra, R.P.Singh and S.Badrinath and the inclusion of Abhishek Nayar, Ravindra Jadeja and Murali Vijay in the line-up.

he is back!

Munaf Patel and Irfan Pathan have been dropped from the side that went to New Zealand.

Tendulkar had not recovered from the injury he had picked up during the IPL, while Zaheer Khan too had hurt his shoulder during the tournament, but played in the ICC World T20 and looked a little off-target. Sehwag was around with the team during the initial part of the tournament but did not play a single game and was later diagnosed with grade-I tear in his shoulder. Patel and Pathan haven’t had a great couple of months and the selectors would have thought about giving other cricketers like Nayar and Nehra, who had had a decent IPL a chance to perform during the series. Nayar has been doing well for the Mumbai Ranji team as an all-rounder as well, and it will be interesting to see whether he gets his chances in the Caribbean.

Dropped after indifferent form

There had been questions asked about Ishant Sharma’s match fitness as well, as he looked to be tired and jaded and did not have a very good ICC World T20. However, the selectors would have thought hard about the absence of Zaheer Khan and with no other senior bowler in the team, decided to go ahead with Sharma.

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Comments on this article

Aditi Verma, Jun 18,2009 at 06:04

I wonder why people are making such a hue and cry about the exit from the T20 world cup when so many of our players actually played with niggles and injuries. It is simply surprising to see how little people or fans, in a country where cricket is a religion, know about the technicalities or requirements of the game.

Anjali Nambissan, Jun 18,2009 at 06:23

Bizarre selection: Why is Irfan Pathan out after just one game? If Jadeja, Nayar, Nehra and Badrinath are picked on the basis of their IPL form, then why isn't Irfan Pathan picked?

Why is the ODI squad being selected on the basis of a stupid domestic IPL tournament which was nothing but a TV rating and money earning scheme for the BCCI???

Kavita Nambissan, Jun 19,2009 at 02:36

As professionals, these people need to either play every game or simply ship out. Things are much harder in football with games every weekend and even mid-weeks. Despite that, players hardly have stress injuries.

The fact is that cricketers aren't as tough and fit as other sports people. Footballers have six-packs, our cricketers have 60-packs.

These guys are unfit and truly believe that only skill and technique can get them through; athleticism and stamina with endurance and speed, are nothing but useless attributes that do nothing but endanger our lazy time...

Suneer Chowdhary, Jun 20,2009 at 02:13

Aditi, I think you have hit the nail on the head. Only recently, Michael Atherton had called the Indian fans a little immature, and he was not too far away from the mark. Personally I feel, I do not think this effigy burning occurs because the fans are upset about a loss, it is more because a media channel or two supply a group of people with enough resources to be able to carry this out and in turn get the necessary bytes for the television.

Kavita, while I do think that the cricketers could get fitter, they can only do so much with the kind of packed schedules. The criticism meted out to BCCI about being a participant in this promoting the over-kill of this game isnt wrong. Comparing sports will be like comparing apples and oranges, a tad unfair I believe.