Way
back in 1979, the touring Australians led by Kim Hughes played their second
Test at Bangalore where an off-spinner debuted and went along to play for India
for sometime with recognition …
For the tour of
Bangladesh now, there was thinking that the Cricket board would balance by
selecting Kohli for the Test and provide him rest for One dayers – and perhaps
Dhoni too might rest after hectic IPL.
There was some talk that as an act of grace, the Board might recall
Virender Sehwag, Yuvaraj Singh, Zaheer and Harbhajan – allowing them a peaceful
retirement – there was some talk that Suresh Raina might lead…. Nothing happened eventually – we have almost
the same team that played in recent Aussie tour / WC cup.
The
man on comeback is 34 year old Harbhajan Singh – who has
played 101 tests taking 413 wickets and 229 one dayers taking 259 wickets ~ he
has two test centuries too ….. he has been bowling well in IPL, scored a flashy
50 off mere 19 too – but is that the investment for future …
Recall that in that
famous Test no. 1535 at Eden Gardens ever remembered for the masterly 281 of
VVS Laxman and Ganguly reversing the winning streak of Aussies, occurred the hat-trick of Bhaji, getting rid
of skipper Ricky Pointing, Adam
Gilchrist and the wizard the great Shane Warne who was caught
out. The Last decision was also reffered to the third umpire who decided to
give it out, making it the first ever hat-trick by an Indian in test cricket.
Harbhajan Singh returns to India's Test squad for the first time in
two years after he was picked for the only Test in Bangladesh from June 10 to
14. The selection committee, which met in Mumbai on Wednesday, retained the
majority of the squad that toured Australia in 2014-15 with the exception of
left-arm spinner Ravindra Jadeja. He
last played Test cricket in 2013, when he was picked for the final two matches
of the home series against Australia that India won 4-0. Harbhajan took only
five wickets in those games at an average of 40.80.
"The
Bangladesh batting order has six left-handers, keeping that in mind, we
discussed with the captain and we felt it was necessary to have a second
offspinner," Patil said. "I also want to
point out we not only discussed Harbhajan. We also discussed other youngsters
and considered them. Ultimately the selection committee and the captain felt
this was the right choice for this particular tour." Could not the selectors have thought of a Swarupam
Purkayastha of Assam, Malolan Rangarajan
of Tamil Nadu or Jayant Yadav of Haryana or Parvez Rasool of Kashmir, if they were looking for an off-spinner
only. Sunil Gavaskar is quoted as saying NDTV that the selection
of Harbhajan shows the dearth of quality off-spinners in India. "Certainly
it is not a good sign. It shows that we don't have many good off-spinners
around who are pressing for a place in the team."
Now the team is
: Test
squad: Virat Kohli (capt), M Vijay, Shikhar Dhawan, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar
Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Wriddhiman Saha, R Ashwin, Harbhajan
Singh, Karn Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron, Ishant Sharma
ODI
squad: MS Dhoni (capt), Rohit Sharma, Ajinkya Rahane, Shikhar Dhawan, Virat
Kohli, Suresh Raina, Ambati Rayudu, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Axar Patel,
Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Umesh Yadav, Mohit Sharma, Stuart Binny, Dhawal Kulkarni
Eventually, he may
not be in the playing XI – in the hey
days of Indian spinners, Venkatraghavan
and Prasanna were never picked together – one replaced another depending on
Captain’s choice ! - In that tour of
1979, at Chepauk in 1st Test debuted Dilip Doshi and in the 2nd at Bangalore
debuted Shivlal Yadav going on to scalp 102 test wickets. Srinivasan Venkatraghavan too played in that
Test – two offies in the same Test …
With regards – S.
Sampathkumar
20th May 2015.
No comments:
Post a Comment