Bangladesh Tour: Young Team, Please!

The BCCI has recommended to the Indian selectors to pick a young team for the Bangladesh tour. I just hope the selectors would take this advice seriously! The so-called super stars of Indian cricket have had their chance on the World stage and failed miserably. Now comes a series against Bangladesh. This is perfect time to experiment and discover some new talent. On the last Bangladesh tour India lost an opportunity by dragging along the same “old” players. A struggling Sachin Tendulkar scored a century etc. on the last tour. Duh! What a waste? What were the selectors trying to prove?

Just look at Sri Lanka. Marvan Attapattu the former captain has been warming the benches as a reserve for this entire World Cup. Can’t India’s super-stars take a break from a single tour? It doesn’t have to mean that its the end of the road for the likes of Ganguly, Sehwag and Sachin. They can always be brought back for the tour of England and Australia. In the mean time, its a golden opportunity for India to unearth the talent that sadly Dilip Vengsarkar thinks doesn’t exist. It would be premature to pick the under 19 players, unless there is some outstanding talent that is spotted. Instead it would be prudent to try those who have had a chance to mature through the system (the 23-29 year olds).

The Australian team is a perfect example where this approach has been perfected. Barring Michael Clarke most players have come into the Aussie side after significant number of years at the domestic level (I don’t mean to say that India’s Ranji circuit is anywhere close to its equivalent Down Under).

Btw, Here is my pick for this tour (though I think the selectors will continue to persist with the Gangulys, and Sachins).

ODI Team:

Dravid, Gambhir, Uthappa, Badrinath, Yuvraj, Karthik, Dhoni, Powar, Piyush Chawla, RP Singh, Manoj Tiwari, Yusuf Pathan, SS Paul, Zaheer Khan, Gagandeep Singh.

Test Team:

Gambhir, Wasim Jaffer, Dravid, Venugopal Rao, VVS, Yuvraj, Kaif, Powar, Kumble, Sreesanth, Zaheer Khan, Karthik, Munaf Patel, VRV Singh, RP Singh.