Dubai: The announcement of the Indian team for the West Indies tour had to be postponed due to the anarchy in the functioning of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
The team was scheduled to be announced today but the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA), that runs the BCCI, put out a directive saying that the Secretary of the board will no longer convene selection meetings, instead the chairpersons of the respective selection committees will convene the meetings except on overseas tours, where the team’s administrative manager will take over the convener’s role.
A change to this age-old policy has led to a lot of confusion and formalities. Nobody knows why it took nearly an year for the CoA to introduce such a policy as the selection committee continued to be chaired by the secretary since they took charge.
However, as usual, the BCCI hasn’t even made an official release on the postponement leading to speculations that the delay could also be due to various other reasons like absence of any intimation from Mahendra Singh Dhoni on his availability for the tour.
Discussions were held on taking Dhoni on the tour as a mentor than a player. Apparently Dhoni hasn’t responded to any suggestion and has also not given a confirmation on whether this would be his last tour. Many feel it is time for the chief selector to have a discussion with Dhoni on his plans and also inform him that he is longer seen as the wicketkeeper for their future plans, especially before the next year’s T20 World Cup.
Virender Sehwag has stated that it would be wrong on selection committee to drop Dhoni without informing him early that they would like to replace him with a younger wicketkeeper.
As all these are happening a video has come out in the social media with Dhoni, from behind the wicket, instructing the Indian spinners in Hindi on where to pitch the ball against New Zealand and how the spinners, following his instructions, get wickets.
Another reason for the postponement is that the fitness report on many of the players are yet to reach the selectors and that it will be available only by Saturday. Once they get the fitness report, then the meeting will be convened immediately or pushed to Sunday. There was discussion on whether Virat Kohli should be rested, but the Indian captain announced that he is keen to play all the matches in West Indies.
The India team’s West Indies tour commences with two T20 matches to be played at the Central Broward Regional Park Stadium Turf Ground, Lauderhill in Florida, USA and the third T20 in Guyana. This will be followed by three One Day Internationals and two Tests.
