There is a super selector in each one of us as cricket fans and every IPL whenever we see young players dazzle, that guy wakes up as we try to convince ourselves and others that those performers should be picked for India.
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As this year’s IPL precedes a marquee global competition like the
T20 World Cup
, there is a familiar clamour building up to pick may be an Ashutosh Sharma or a Shashank Singh as finishers, as they have engineered a couple of stunning heists for Punjab Kings.
However, things don’t work out that way.
In the IPL, some of the Indian batters do not face four or five quality international bowlers for their full quota. Also, the wickets in the Caribbean and America, may not be as flat as they are in the IPL and may require batting skills and not just hitting skills as we are currently witnessing in the IPL.
India’s matches are all going to be day games to suit the broadcast timings for an Indian audience which means dew won’t be a factor and the wickets may offer some grip for the spinners and clearing one’s front leg and depositing the ball into the stands may not be so easy. May be, we will see lower scores and there may be place for someone who plays the role of a traditional sheet anchor.
Also, players shining for their franchises in certain positions may not get to bat at that position for the national team as India already have proven performers in those roles.
Abhishek Sharma (SRH) and Ruturaj Gaikwad (CSK), who have done well as openers, are competing against Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal. At No.3 and No.4, India have players who answer to the name of Virat Kohli and Suryakumar Yadav.
In two back-to-back T20 World Cups, the selectors paid a heavy price of going for a couple of IPL performers. In 2021, when the event was held in the UAE, they opted for Varun Chakravarthy, who had a great season for KKR, but was ineffective in the same conditions for India when he played in the World Cup.
In 2022, in Australia, the selectors picked Dinesh Karthik, who excelled as a finisher for RCB and in many games the team management also picked him ahead of Rishabh Pant in the playing XI. That move also backfired.
More than IPL performers, the selectors may be should be worried about how to keep their pool of players fresh after a gruelling two months of IPL cricket. There have been three T20 World Cups (2009, 2010, 2021) that have been played a few weeks after the IPL and in all those events, India could not qualify for the semis.
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