Nope I’m not talking about the original Wall, the 1.0 version, Rahul Dravid after his rather sweet 170 odd run but rather the brightest potential from Indian domestic cricket that might continue the original Wall’s legacy.

For the memories to be jogged back, you can see the original post on Wall 2.0 here or better move over to The Cricket Watcher’s Journal, Straight Points christened Che chronicles and also on good old bored.

He suffered a serious injury before IPL 2 in South Africa and went under the knife. I was a bit amused when a PR article came out on rediff where Pujara went on praising team owner Shah Rukh Khan on his generosity and concern. Either Pujara was just being nice or indeed SRK was extra special or rather Pujara was completely ignorant of the fact that the team owners are under obligation to provide the best treatment in whichever part of the world it requires. When I first read the piece, it struck me as a PR push by the franchise on an unsuspecting cricketer.

Either way there was no harm done and it was always nice to find domestic cricketer players making the news.

Almost a year on, this year’s domestic season was under way and there was still no sign of Pujara for Saurashtra. A few matches later, a quiet headline sneaked deep into the pages of Cricinfo that caught my eye and it screamed “Pujara double ton drives Saurashtra”.

The boy was back and on the hunt again. Brilliant.

On an another note, recently some of the clueless honchos of the BCCI outlined their thoughts on reforming the domestic league, on the heel of the media bickering on how good the Australian domestic structure was after the recent Champions league and one-day series.

While much of it was rubbish, you can not help but see that the biggest issue is in the structure by itself in terms of the sheer number of teams.
Why would one single state want to float 2 domestic cricket teams in the form of Mumbai, Maharashtra and Gujarat and Saurashtra? Ridiculous but that exactly outlines the bigger geo-political problems and selfish aspirations of many.

The bottom line is that there is way too many teams in the Indian domestic cricket structure and there is too much to manage and more importantly do justice in following their progress and ascertain the quality of the crop, which is the most difficult to ascertain in terms of benchmarking performance.

It makes sense that the number of teams be curtailed and merged. It might not be a bad idea to have 2-tier structure to accommodate the numbers and political aspirations, where the top tier have about 4-6 teams similar to the zonal systems and the premier Ranji trophy tournament can be a battle between these teams.

The players not found good enough for tier 1 and play in tier 2 with a new tournament and format, where they graduate or plunge at this level managed by the local administrators.

While the national selectors could well spend all their time and effort keenly following the Ranji trophy with more competitive and manageable pool that offers the best potential to play for India when a need arises.

Back to Saurashtra , they have done quite decently in the last few years but that has primarily been on the strength of Pujara and Ravindra Jadeja doing the support role. Ravindra Jadeja had Santa Claus visiting early when he was picked too undercooked.

I have never been a fan of the ‘catch them when they are young’ policy. Fast track has no meaning in International cricket, unless you are exceptional like the Tendulkar’s and the Warners. However, I don’t mind if anyone at the helm of Indian cricket can take a definite policy stand and stick with their convictions.
The Krish Srikanth selection panel at best have been like a bunch of dogs chasing their own tails clockwise and then anti-clockwise. I bet they find it amusing too. The lack of clarity has been damaging for Indian cricket.

It is puzzling to see these guys look everywhere but miss the elephant in the room, making all the 300s and 200s in his short career. If there was anyone I would be tempted to play for the Indian cricket team among the young crop, then it would be Pujara. Strike him off the list of 20-20 cricket… That’s only to spoil him. Test would be the best fit but he has to wait till Rahul hangs his boot and One days could be a good option.

Either way there is some time and am hopefully Cheteshwar Pujara plays for India and meet our expectations.
Someone you get the feeling that it is his destiny.

EDIT: Sorry Folks… The Ranji does have a two -tier system. So this is factually wrong. However, the method of graduating the top tier 2 teams on to the knock-out stages and for next year’s trophy directly into the super group still doesn’t make sense. Besides, the number of teams are way too high. My apologies.