Monday, July 30, 2007

COLONEL’S CALL



No wholesale changes, only retail: Vengsarkar

Chief Selector Says Plenty of Cricket Left in Tendulkar, Son

Abhimanyu Girotra Onloose. Pilferage Inc

Trent Bridge (Nottingham):

Chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar agrees finally that Indian cricket’s Generation Next will have a tough time stepping into the shoes of some of the biggest stars that the team has ever seen; He clarifies that by great shoes he doesn’t mean that of Munaf Patel or Abbey Kuruvilla.





He stops short (thankfully) of envisioning, the kind of crisis that Australia plunged into in the 1980s when their Big Three — Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rod Marsh — suddenly decided to zip into the sunset.

Ironically the exit of the big three was apparently the reason of Vengsarkar’s survival in the International Cricket.

‘‘We have some good youngsters in the wings (Sona Chandi Chavanprash, Marie Gold & Sahara), I am sure they will rise to the challenge of doing commercials for 22 hours a day and devoting the rest of the whole heartedly on the field”, commented dismal Colonel.




They just need to be ready for the bad light day and Duckworth Lewis will take care of the rest,’’ he added. He reluctantly accepted that the selectors and the Board had a particularly important role in the emerging scenario.

‘‘We have to give them opportunities at the right time. We have to groom them properly so that their Entry and Exit in international cricket remains smooth,’’ he said.

Sighting his debut example, ‘‘we can’t take a bunch of youngsters straightaway to Australia. It will be disastrous’’ he explained.

The message is, therefore, quite clear. Even if the mighty Indian batting is quivering at its foundation, it won’t be dismantled in a hurry. After all we have talented and good for nothing tail-enders like Ajit Agarkar, RP Singh and S Sreesanth.

He, however, doesn’t see them crumbling in the immediate future, because they wont be in the team anymore, commented Vengsarkar making a poker man’s face.

“The Board is very sure that the teams performance in the next year will be the best ever since we have scheduled matched of the Indian team with Togo, The Solomon Islands, Mexico, Tajikistan and The United Republic of Firosco, the magic will come back again to the team”, Commented the exuberant Coach .


We can take away a lot of positives from the tour. It's not very easy to lose a three test series after being one-nil up, but commendable thing about the players is that they don’t get carried away by the extra swing, they just allow their wickets to get carried away.

The proud owner of three centuries at Lord’s (ICC has no record of it) felt that the key was to be extra alert at the international level, ‘‘Most of our batsmen, especially the younger ones, are just out of college, they have not seen this kind of money before. The extra pace and helmet height bouncers makes them the best brand ambassadors for medical insurance.



Commenting on the poor performance of the Team of late, ‘‘I am sure the team will come good. We anyway always take some time to adjust to the pitches and conditions when we are traveling, by that time the series usually end like 4-0’’ he conceded meekly.