The bizarre ways of the selectors

The decision of the selectors to drop Bhandari, Kumaran and Dighe from the line-up for the remaining two one-dayers against South Africa and the Coca Cola Trophy in Sharjah is truly bizarre. Dighe, after his shoddy performance in the first match, did very well at Jamshedpur as a wicket-keeper and in the game at Faridabad, he played a useful knock late in the innings.

Kumaran gets the sack yet again without many opportunities. He went on a tour of Australia without playing a single Test and was sent back before the one-dayers began. He did not play in either of the Tests against South Africa too. So it is difficult to imagine a situation where the selectors decided that he had been given enough chances.

Bhandari's omission is the strangest of the lot. He didn't get a single game. So on what basis was he dropped from the squad? The inclusion of Srinath was a certainty the moment South Africa prevented India from taking a winning 3-0 lead. Bhandari was in the squad for the DMC Trophy tournament at Toronto last September. He did not play a game and in fact he was never in any other squad till this one-day series. The fact that he has been dropped without getting a game is pretty much consistent with the BCCI selectors' method of working. He becomes just one more bowler added to the list of Indian players who haven't got enough opportunities to cement themselves in the squad. The names of Harvinder Singh, Debashish Mohanty, Gyanendra Pandey, Harbhajan Singh and Laxmi Ratan Shukla come to mind.

Saba Karim's inclusion stems from the fact that he is from Bengal. He may have been in good form this season but it makes little sense to drop a keeper who has improved in the series and replace him with a 32-year-old. With the Indian skipper also hailing from the same state, it was just a matter of time before Karim broke through into the team.

Sriram's selection is a bizarre one. His best performances have come in the Ranji Trophy this season while he has been hardly impressive in the Deodhar and Ranji One-Day tournaments. It is highly unlikely that Sriram will figure in the starting lineup because he would then have to replace one of Ganguly, Tendulkar, Dravid, Azharuddin, Jadeja and Robin Singh. Such a situation is possible only if the game is irrelevant or one of the above players is injured. Even in such a situation, Md Kaif has a greater chance of being in the playing eleven. Unless Sriram is persisted with, he will be added to the list of forgotten Indian players mentioned above. Consistency has never been a hallmark of the BCCI's selection panel and they would be hard pressed to explain their recent selections.