The Hindu : Sport : Need for three professional national selection committees

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Sport

Sport

Need for three professional national selection committees

Makarand Waingankar

A few months back, the West Indies Cricket Board admitted that had their financial position been sound, their selection process of players too would have been smooth. A secure financial position and selection process are extremely important to the growth of the game, and Team Pawar has, by tapping all the resources, improved the financial position of the BCCI. But the BCCI seems far less inclined to opt for beneficial changes in the selection process.

For a decade, the BCCI's successive regimes have promised, and then forgotten, the forming of a three-member selection committee.

In 1997, the BCCI appointed a nine-member committee to explore the possibility of having a three-member selection committee. It then appointed a legal committee, which duly submitted its recommendations but these were never discussed in the working committee.

Nine years later, the Team Pawar assured us of a professional set-up of a three-member selection committee.

However, it has not been proposed in the recommendations for the amendments of the constitution, which will be discussed on June 1.

The existing two selection committees are expected to watch 532 matches in six months and the selectors' positions being honorary, no selector can afford to take leave from his profession and watch around a 100 matches each.

There are 325 junior matches being played and if the five junior selectors have to watch 325 matches, each selector will have to be at minimum 65 venues, which is impossible with the huge distances and close scheduling of the matches.

Talent resource

The chairman of the national junior selection committee, Pravin Amre, feels that had it not been for the recommendations of the Talent Resources Development Officers, the huge talent that emerged post-2002 in making the bench strength of the senior team as substantial as it now is would have been unlikely.

Not many are aware that most of the selectors of the junior national selection committee are representing smaller States.

The problem here is of the status. Former BCCI secretary J.Y. Lele says that top players approached by the BCCI for honorary selectorial posts in the senior and junior selection committees are amenable to join the senior but not the junior selection committee as they feel it is not worth their effort. The travel and daily allowance pattern is the same for members of both the committees.

Experienced cricketers

Former India captain and the chairman of the TRDW, Dilip Vengsarkar, says that the BCCI must appoint experienced professional cricketers in the junior selection committee so that talent can be identified and nurtured. He cites the example of Cricket Australia appointing Allan Border as the chairman of the junior selection committee but for Border it was a paid job.

Now that the BCCI has generated huge funding to back any schemes, the ideal way would be to replace the honorary junior and senior selection committees with three professional selection committees, which could do justice to the talent-identification process.

Around 400 players play in each age group and if talent is to be tapped from the 1,200 boys playing in the three junior age-group tournaments, it is impossible for the five selectors to pick the talent.

With the addition of one selection committee for the combined under-15 and 17 groups, the selection process will look meaningful. The other committee can watch matches of under-19 and 22. The senior selection committee can concentrate on Ranji, Duleep, India A and other national tournaments.

There are more than 2,000 players playing in more than a dozen tournaments and if they are to be watched by only 10 selectors, the frequency of getting a Dhoni or a Raina will be drastically reduced. For a Board, which is keen to have corporate governance, getting the selection process right should be at the top on their agenda.

Zonal selections

The zonal selection process in Indian cricket has projected all the negative aspects and quite systematically encouraged mediocre talent. The existent quota bias is very much an evil of the system, which will always be an obstacle to the growth of Indian cricket.

Appointment of highly paid experienced professional selectors in the three national selection committees is the only solution to the problem. Like their predecessors, the present regime in the BCCI too is wary of the vote-cost if it gets rid of the zonal system. Unfortunately the BCCI politics is always concerned with 30 votes rather than improving the standard of the 2,000 cricketers playing for those 30 vote banks.

This has to change and Team Pawar is capable of changing it.

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