Test snub needles Sarfaraz Khan again

Unlike football managers Indias cricket selectors dont have to stand on the touchline and absorb all that the crowd thinks of them Perhaps if they did you wouldnt be surprised to hear chants of lsquoYou dont know what youre doingrsquo cascading down from the stands at a stadiumYou need not spend long wandering about freely and often far afield around the country to know that nearly every Indian fan thinks he or she would do a better job of selecting squads than those presently tasked with doing it It is a role that looks easy from the outside mdash preoccupied often debating which quicks should go to England and which spinners merit a shot in West Indies But whatrsquos it really like to make shape and break careersSelectors are a bit like wicketkeepers We only really notice them when they make terrible mistakes Often so distant from the fray they do not usually receive plaudits only brickbats The lineage of these men and the longrange impacts of their decisions are not often considered in totality but the concept of the selector as a hate figure has existed since forever But there lies a great satisfaction in it too ldquoYou never quite know how a player is going to react when theyrsquore put in front of 25000 people and theyrsquore at the centre of the countryrsquos sporting attention for a week But when you see someone go out there and look the part you think lsquowell done the playerrsquo but also lsquogive yourself a pat on the back for seeing something in the player and making the decisionrsquordquo said a wise man oncePlayers like Sachin Tendulkar or Mahendra Singh Dhoni or Virat Kohli were first picked to play for the state and later for the country purely based on instinct Who could have predicted then that each one of them would end up as a batting legend when they made it to the India squad at first There could easily have been others at the time that they were picked who would have had better credentials perhaps statisticswiseIf Cheteshwar Pujara faced the axe for his dreary liaison with the willow does inclusion of young guns Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad guarantee India middleorder success Former India captain Sunil Gavaskar came down heavily on the selection panel even going to an extent of labelling Indiarsquos Test specialist as the lsquoscapegoatrsquoldquoHe has been a loyal servant of Indian cricket a quiet and able achiever But because he doesnrsquot have millions of followers on whatever platforms who would make a noise in case he gets dropped you drop him That is something beyond understandingrdquo questioned GavaskarFor instance Virat Kohli has 932 runs to his name at an average of only 3213 thanks to his blistering knock of 186 against Australia in the Ahmedabad Test which ended in a draw Pujara meanwhile scored 927 runs at an average of 3196 and had one hundred to his name against Bangladesh in a winning cause Rohit Sharma on the other hand played lesser innings than the two during the same period having scored 758 runs at an average of 4211 Clearly RohitKohli were given the goaheadAlso Read Analysis Jaiswal the new Pujara Rahane braces for vicecaptaincy in West Indies TestsIf Pujararsquos contributions of 14 and 27 at the Oval were made to look like extravagant riches by the supine stumbles of Indias top and middleorder against Australiarsquos formidable XI then it should not detract from the fact that the 35yearold has long since ceased to merit his place as a 100Test veteran If this wasnrsquot enough the noninclusion of Mumbaikar Sarfaraz Khan has entered into the spirit of national debate over the past few days This is not about whether the prolific runscorer deserved to be picked ahead of the likes of Gaikwad or Jaiswal it is about the sheer idiocy of acting ignorant time and againIf the aim was to break with the past and look to the future why canrsquot they now afford to swing the other extreme and part ways with underperformers Did Sarfaraz deserve to be left by the wayside Once more the power of prayer and hope takes precedence over rational thought and logic in Indian cricket You will know whyThe twotime former India U19 World Cup player has amassed 2566 runs in the last three Ranji seasons with an impressive career average of 7965 after 37 redball games to fall back on Gaikwad whose career average is nothing beyond 42plus is nowhere close But he gets the nod ahead of Sarfaraz what will the selectors now say That his remarkable Ranji career counted for nothing when stacked up against his intermittent success in the IPLSelection isnt about ego or arranging farewells for great players It should only be about picking the best XI to win a game By going into the Caribbean Islands with more or less the same XI that were thrashed at the Oval India are only wishing away a problem that was glaringly evident to anyone that watched the WTC Final without their heads buried in the sand