It is the right time to groom young cricketers. BCCI should put in efforts seriously in this regard. Rahul Dravid, V.V.S.Laxman,Sachin Tendulkar,Zaheer Khan and Munaf Patel are most unlikely to play international cricket for more than 2 to 3 years. The backup players like Yuvraj Singh,Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sarma should take up the mantle soon. It needs plenty of dedication and sincerity for them to succeed at the highest level. They should treat each and every match like their first match. BCCI should make them aware of their shortcomings. They should be told to work out on their short comings in their interest and in the interest of the Nation. Even the invincible Sachin Tendulkar has shown chinks in his armour and so did all our top batsmen except Rahul Dravid in the recently concluded England test series.  They appeared like gutless players and sense of shame is not seen on their faces. What a shame. Our cricketers were totally under prepared. The least thing Dhoni could have done is to play five bowlers in every match and drop Suresh Raina. I certainly don’t think our youngsters are worth the money they are being paid in IPL.

Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh and Rohit Sarma have earned a reasonably good sum by now. They are still young. They should realize that they would be replacing the fabulous three shortly in the test and one day cricket. They need to play sensible and responsible cricket for a longer period of time to come without worrying about the money factor. They should have the zeal to fight it out at the highest level.

BCCI should keep away Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir ,  Rahul   Dravid,V.V.S.Lakshman,Yuvraj,Raina,Kohli,Rohit Sarma , Chetesh Pujara, Ambati Rayudu, Abhinav Mukund,Paul Chandrasekhar Valthaty, Zaheer Khan,Munaf Patel,Varun Aron, M.S.Dhoni, Parthiv Patel, Ishant Sharma,Amit Mishra,Ravichandran Aswin, Piyush Chawla, Ajinkya Rahane,Manoj Tiwari, Pragyan Ojha,Umesh Yadav,Ravindra Jadeja,Saurabh Tiwari, Praveen Kumar, Iqbal Abdullah and couple of other talented youngsters from playing any 20-20 cricket including IPL tournament. Special efforts should be made by BCCI for tapping fast bowlers who can bowl consistently 140 km + all the time. BCCI may provide necessary financial compensation to youngsters subject to performance for not playing 20-20 cricket.

Praveen Kumar was a successful bowler but not a match winning bowler against England in the recently concluded series since he lacks pace. Ishant Sharma has pace but lacks consistency and dedication. Sreesant has to improve leaps and bounds in temperament, sincerity and dedication. Our medium pacers of the calibre of Irfan Pathan,Ashok Dinda,Vinay Kumar, Lakshmipathy Balaji, Abhimanyu Mithun,R.P.Singh,Jaydev Unadkhat,S.Aravind etc lack speed and pose no threat to international class batsmen especially under unhelpful conditions. Gone are the days of great spinners like Prasanna, Bedi, Chandrasekhar and Venkat Raghavan. Our Board has to efficiently groom Ravichandran Aswin, Prgyan Ozha, Piyush Chawla, Amit Mishra, Iqbal Abdullah and Rahul Sharma.

15th May 2012 should be marked as  golden day for the future of Indian Cricket as far as fast bowling talent is concerned. Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron and Parvinder Awana have exploited the conditions beautifully at Ferozshah Kotla ground at Delhi. They bowled fast, furious and swung the ball nicely on a pitch that provided some assistance. It was a treat to watch them in action in the IPL match between Delhi Dare Devils and Kings XI Punjab. India’s future is secured in the fast bowling department. Our spinners are capable of getting wickets on tailor made pitches. They should learn the art of taking wickets on pitches that favour batsmen. But this is most unlikely to happen in the present scenario, quite unfortunate indeed.

Our players should be made to work hard in fielding as well and raise their fielding standards. Our cricket can attain greater heights again if separate teams are selected for all the three types of cricket with proper backup without messing up by playing them in all forms of cricket. The cricketers should play with dedication and raise their performance in batting, bowling and fielding lest they should never be considered for donning national colours irrespective of their seniority and previous contribution to the team as players.

A pool of 60 cricketers for three forms of cricket should be selected purely on merit and dedication and without regional bias. The pitches in India should be made sporting so that bowlers can find helpful conditions to bowl on pitches having some bounce and the batsmen can exploit their skills on the challenging pitches for improving their performance. These steps will immensely benefit the future of the Indian Cricket.

 

 

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