Indian U-17 team: An opportunity missed or denied?

India has decided to pull out of the ten-nation ICC under-17 tournament to be played in Karachi from July 15 to 25. "India's participation is ruled out. Time is too short," said BCCI's joint secretary Jyoti Bajpai on Friday from Kanpur. One of the reasons, according to Bajpai, is the dates clashed with the under-15 World Cup in England.

Even on Friday, the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) Lt Gen Tauqir Zia was quoted as saying in Karachi "As regards the participation of the India Under-17 team in the Asia Cup here, I talked to the BCCI official who insist they are sending the team.'' Indian Cricket Board sources said that if the tournament was to start on a later date, they could consider participating.

But the main reason attributed for declining the invitation is the logistics involved, since the process of picking players and verifying their ages was a formidable task. Bajpai said "We don't even have a format for under-17 boys like what we have for under-15 and under-19 boys and hence can't send the team to Pakistan."

A team could not be identified for the under-17 as there were no tournaments for that specific age group. The junior selectors had their jobs easy as they were able to pick a team for the under-15 tournament in Kuala Lumpur because the BCCI conducts various tournaments for both u-15 and u-16.

The other reason perhaps is that the invitation came from Nasim-ul-Ghani, Development Officer of the ICC and not from the PCB. The ten-nation event will start at Karachi from Saturday, July 15, with matches between Pakistan and Bangladesh, Nepal and Kuwait, Sri Lanka and Singapore and Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Meanwhile, the selection trials for the Indian u-15 team to play the World Cup from July 30 to August 15 has been cancelled. The trials were to have been held in Bangalore. The team will now be selected over the weekend. The players selected would have to be given neccessary documents and because of the delay involved, the trials had to be cancelled. According to the British High Commission, individual application has to made to obtain the visa as per the guidelines.

The Indians have retained the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) secretary, Ratnakar Shetty as the manager and Roger Binny will continue as the coach. Some changes in the Indian squad are expected for there were complaints from various quarters, especially Pakistan, against overaged players in the recently concluded Asian Cricket Council championship which India won convincingly.

With the Indian juniors performing exceedingly well lately, having won the under-19 World Cup at Sri Lanka earlier this year as well as the u-15 ACC Championship in Kaula Lumpur last week, major hiccups such as these can affect both the performances and morale of the team in future. By not fielding a team in the under-17 competition, the BCCI has missed a chance which would have been ideal for the youngsters. An opportunity missed is an opportunity denied for who knows when they will have a chance to add another feather in their cap!