Congratulations team India

To be honest, more than the Commonwealth series, the u19 world cup finals was something which I was really looking forward to. India beat South Africa to clinch the championship in a rain affected match. The only sad aspect of this tournament was just like the commonwealth series, there were many matches affected by rain and a true contest was robbed.

It has been three world cups in a row that India has made it to the finals and this shows that the development programme of cricket in the junior level is working well and the officials involved have all done a great job. Hats off to these behind the scenes guys!

Players like Kaif, Yuvraj, Uthappa, Raina and Piyush are all from the crop of the u19 champions and it brings the interesting question of what is going wrong with India at the upper levels on the international stage.

To rewind the clock back to the time when Chappell was coach and the likes of Raina were there, many domestic players were fed up that they were being ignored and felt that there was a complete lack of respect to the performances put in the domestic tournaments. An unnamed player then told that “what is the point of scoring seasons after seasons of runs in the domestic formats only to watch an under 19 guy being picked for the Indian team”.

And interestingly around the same time, a few unnamed Indian team players when quizzed about the wisdom of directly introducing these young 19 year olds to the international scene, shot back “for what, for them to rot in the domestic circuit”.

This has been the problem in Indian cricket. A complete lack of understanding and respect towards the domestic tournaments and the perennial obsession of trying to field a player when they are very young. This lack of enough weightage put on the performances in the domestic circuit have led to several occasions of players not seasoned enough to play at the international level and hence a rather ordinary International team which due to certain individuals solo performances can at times upset the best in the game but never world champions to the tune of what West Indies were once and what Australia currently are.

On a happy positive note, even though at times some of Dileep Vengsarkar’s statements and actions have been stupid, on a larger scale, he has been the best selector chairman in the history of Indian cricket and I respect his good work done for Indian cricket. This new young international team have all been picked based on their performances in the domestic tournaments and that is the right methodology to groom and lay a structured foundation. When such a methodology is followed, we will have a true champion team in the near future, the ones which the likes of Australia have set the benchmark for.

On a jittery note, I hope that these selectors don’t try rewind the clock and rush those 19 year olds as a shortcut to the international team. I really hope they go through competing on the national scale to lift their games further and stake claim to represent the nation after they prove they are good enough. When we have a strong domestic development programme and structure in place, with a talent pool as large and diverse, a champion team is bound to be made.

These are happy days for Indian cricket… and it is at its infancy… hope nobody ruins it like in the past.