A few pointers for the selectors

The two premier one day competitions in the country are the Deodhar Trophy and Wills Trophy tournaments. While the former competition was inaugurated in the 1973-74 season, the latter was started in 1977-78. With the growing popularity of one day cricket, a second tournament to judge the ability of the players was a welcome addition to the domestic cricket calendar. And over the years the two competitions have helped hone the skills of young players hoping to don the India cap.

The selectors could not have picked up much by way of information in the Wills Trophy tournament held earlier in January. One probable reason was the knock out format of the competition. The Deodhar Trophy tournament, held at various centres in the West Zone, would have thrown up more pointers for the selectors to consider, given its round robin format. The players welcomed the opportunity of getting more chances to display their skills and a few of them must have caught the selectors' eyes.

Of course, given the nature of the pitches the matches were played on, one must take the big scores maintained by the teams or the centuries notched up by some players with a pinch of salt. But in a way, that would be uncharitable to the efforts of J Arun Kumar, S Sharath and Vinod Kambli who each got two hundreds. All three have been among the runs this season, as indicated by their form in the Ranji Trophy and Duleep Trophy matches. The docile wickets and amiable bowling may devalue their knocks and raise questions as to how they would fare on faster tracks and against international quality attacks. But for a start, they will at least have to be considered for selection for the various India teams for the Challenger tournament to be held in Ahmedabad.

Up for consideration will also be players like Virendra Shewag, Pankaj Dharmani, Saba Karim, Vikram Rathour, Gagan Khoda, Devendra Bundela, Sitanshu Kotak, Nikhil Haldipur, Amol Muzumdar, S Mahesh and Jai P Yadav. The tournament also came in handy for established players like Ajay Jadeja to work themselves back into form and the North Zone all rounder did not disappoint his fans by scoring a couple of half centuries and doing his bit with the ball too.

Conversely, on batsman oriented pitches if big scores have to be taken with a pinch of salt, bowlers who do well on these surfaces must be encouraged. And here the efforts of Robin Singh (jr), Amit Bhandari and Sharandeep Singh are really to be commended. Robin took three wickets against West Zone and four against Central Zone. Sharandeep picked up three wickets against East Zone while Bhandari captured three each against East Zone and South Zone. The Delhi medium pacer's opening spell in the `final' against South Zone when he dismissed the in form Arun Kumar, Reuben Paul and Md Azharuddin virtually clinched the trophy for North Zone.

Overall however it remained a very typical Deodhar Trophy tournament with the bat dominating. Teams chasing 300 plus and just falling short, teams chasing 300 plus successfully, teams chasing 300 plus and winning with ten overs to spare, totals of 275 for seven, 272 for four and 278 for eight posing no challenge for the opponents. Only in one match out of ten did the ball dominate. But then, this is what Indian domestic cricket is all about.