Just weeks back when Kohli was struggling to come to terms with Aussie conditions, he came close to being dropped after the second Test. Pressure had built up, after two successive heavy defeats, to make some change in the middle order — you couldn’t touch Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman, apparently, so it had to be young Kohli. In the end, the tour selection panel stuck to the same team, Kohli came good in Perth, and he has gone from strength to strength from there. Now he is being hailed as the future captain of India, and the greatest player to have emerged after Sachin and co. But these same selectors were so quick to drop Kohli from the Test team after a poor performance in the West Indies. So much for their gauging of the potential of new talent.
Now the chairman of selectors, going to great pains to explain the inclusion of Sachin Tendulkar for the Asia Cup, says the youngsters with the exception of Kohli failed to grab their opportunities in Australia. This is ludicrous. Clearly Kohli did well in the ODIs because he played in the preceding Test series, where initially he too got out to loose shots just like Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina did in the tri-series. On bouncy tracks, the same shots that are so productive for a batsman in the sub-continent become loose. So it takes time to adjust. In fact, it was the refusal to give new talent a chance in the Test series that proved to be India’s undoing in the subsequent tri-series.
Rohit Sharma sat through four Test matches, watching the team getting drubbed and humiliated, not just beaten. Even in the last Test, after we had already lost the series 3-0, the full trio of Tendulkar-Dravid-Laxman took the field. All three should have made way for youngsters at least in the fourth Test. Tendulkar did not do as badly as Dravid and Laxman, but chipping in with the odd fifty is certainly not what is required from the most experienced batsman in the side. In any case, why did he have to play the fourth Test in a dead rubber? Was achieving a personal milestone more important than giving an opportunity to groom new talent on an Aussie pitch where the next World Cup will be played?
And now he will play in Bangladesh. Why does Tendulkar need to play there? Everyone knows batting does not get any easier than on some of the pitches in Bangladesh. This is where some new batting talent could have been given a chance at the top of the order. It was in fact vital for India to identify an alternative partner for Gambhir, given the decline in Sehwag’s form and fitness. This is not going to happen now because of the inclusion of Tendulkar.
So then why is he playing in Bangladesh? Tendulkar chose not to play the one-dayers at home against England and the West Indies. Those did not matter to him. He would have wanted to save his 100th ton for the bigger stage of Tests and Australia. Now it appears a century anywhere against any opposition will do. That may be fitting in a way because it’s quite a contrived milestone - a combination of hundreds in two different formats of the game and about 20 of them have come against sides like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.
Or perhaps it’s not about Tendulkar’s milestone at all. Maybe he just wants to prepare for the upcoming IPL, given his woeful form in the tri-series in Australia.
Either way, it’s not what the team needs now or in the future that counts, it’s what suits Tendulkar. But why blame him? The person who is responsible for this state of affairs is the chairman of selectors, Krishnamachari Srikkanth. And he has the gall to say the youngsters were just not good enough in Australia.
