Selectors could not have picked up much information

There could not have been a more exciting finale to the country's premier one day competition. A final ending in a tie constitutes one of those dream finishes. But more than the result, the manner in which Central Zone and South Zone battled it out in the title clash of the Deodhar Trophy tournament at Lucknow on Thursday was almost exemplary. Sure, there were frayed tempers on a couple of occasions during the tense, final moments. But there were also sporting gestures. And overall, the standard of play was pretty high and the teams were highly competitive, playing the game in the typical Australian way - hard but fair and thankfully without the excessive sledging. It somehow seems fitting that such an encounter, that had everything a cricket fan could wish for, was played at a venue bearing the name of one of India's greatest sportsmen - KD Singh `Babu' who among other achievements, led India to their gold medal triumph at the Helsinki Olympics in 1952.

The four matches were high scoring games. But then on Indian pitches which are so heavily batsman oriented, what else can one expect? The problem with such games is that while high scores on these surfaces cannot exactly be taken at face value, the bowlers too, easily discouraged, come back battered. Moreover with the Board of Control for Cricket in India showing scant respect to the timing of such an important competition, it was not surprising that the star players were not in a position to participate in the tournament. After all they had just completed a packed itinerary of two Tests and five one day internationals against Zimbabwe and all this coming close on the heels of the one off Test against Bangladesh which in turn followed the ICC Knock out competition in Nairobi and the Champions Trophy in Sharjah. With the month long Duleep Trophy tournament coming up next month, the leading players had no option but to give the Deodhar Trophy a miss, starting as it did only a day after the final ODI against Zimbabwe at Rajkot.

So what could the selectors have learnt from the week long tournament? Nothing much really. Most of the batsmen and bowlers who do well at this level, scored the runs and picked up the wickets. Devang Gandhi and Amay Khurasia, not exactly successes at the international level, were among the runs. Thiru Kumaran and Dodda Ganesh, again not exactly successes at the international level, picked up the wickets. India discards Hrishikesh Kanitkar and Jacob Martin got hundreds in the one match they played. That VVS Laxman continues to `Mr Consistent' at the national level was proved during the tournament. And that Robin Singh still has plenty of cricket in him and was prematurely discarded from the Indian team was perhaps one more lesson to be learnt. It was also good to see Vijay Dahiya and Md Kaif get some runs and Murali Kartik pick up some wickets and one can guess that WD Balaji Rao and Jai P Yadav impressed the selectors but no one can say to what extent.

So there was precious little information that the selectors would have obtained from the tournament. Perhaps next month's Duleep Trophy tournament will help the selectors more in this regard. In the meantime, let us savour memories of the memorable final which will be one of the few domestic matches continued to be talked about for some time to come.