Vengsarkar keen on rotation policy

Dilip Vengsarkar, the former Indian captain who's currently heading the selection committee, has clarified the selectors' decision to adopt a rotation policy from now on.

Vengsarkar reiterated that Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly hadn't been dropped for the forthcoming Bangladesh tour and added that even Rahul Dravid, the Indian captain, would be rested at some stage in the next few months.

"How can we think of dropping Sachin or Sourav? They are fantastic players with fantastic records and there is no question of them being dropped," Vengsarkar told Hindustan Times. "We have 45 one-dayers and 15 Tests over the next year, so we decided to prioritise tours for different players and have accordingly rested Sachin and Sourav for this one. If this [the Bangladesh tour] had been Australia or England, they would not have been rested."

So would Dravid also be rested? "Yes, he will be, everyone will be rested at some stage. It is not humanly possible for a player to play so many matches in a year; we will have to rest different people for various games." As far as games played go, both Dravid (31 games) and Virender Sehwag (27) had played more ODIs last year than Tendulkar (22) and Ganguly (10).

Vengsarkar said he had spoken to both Tendulkar and Ganguly and explained the situation to them. "I told them that everyone would be rested at some stage and if they were not rested now, they would be later. So it would be better if they were rested now so we could look at some others in Bangladesh and they could be available for the tougher tours. They understood and agreed".

He said it was believed that this was the best time to rest two of India's "best players", just so a "few domestic performers could be tested" in international cricket. "It is Bangladesh, not Australia or England, this is the best time we could try out someone new like Manoj Tiwary or Piyush Chawla, or see how someone else who has played before in international cricket does again."