Dinesh Kamath's Editorial (Need to take drastic steps) that was published in Newsband

Need to take drastic steps

Indian cricketers faced the humiliation at home at the hands of England. Indian cricket world is in a disturbed state. Such setbacks did take place in the past too. But this defeat has become a matter for concern to even the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).

How long will the Indian team struggle to regain form? It’s high time some talented youngsters are included in the Indian team. India has no dearth of talents.

In the fourth Test, Ravindra Jadeja replaced Yuvraj Singh just because of his two triple hundreds in the Ranji Trophy. He is the same player who was earlier dropped from the one-dayer because of his poor form. The same holds true for Piyush Chawla.

Our Indian team needs back-ups in all departments. But this is not happening. Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir performed poorly. Their back-up, Murali Vijay, was not found to be up to the mark. Can’t we find talented cricketers for the middle-order, spin and pace departments? R Ashwin, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma are all in poor form.

Our Indian team requires a drastic overhaul and a massive search should be conducted to get hold of extremely talented young cricketers. Even captain MS Dhoni is no more the way he was in the past. One can’t understand as to why the Board persists with him. Is there nobody else in the team to replace him as captain? What’s wrong with Sehwag and Gambhir? It’s true that Virat Kohli is too young but why not he be tried?

It’s sad that one can’t find cricketers of the standard of Cheteshwar Pujara. This lad’s dedication towards the game is exemplary. But he is fit for test cricket. He is an ideal test cricketer. But now cricket is become a fast game and Pujara just doesn’t fit in this commercial set up. Today youngsters prefer to play fast versions of the game like Indian Premier League and they’re least interested in the longer form of the game.

Thus the state of our Indian cricket team is a serious matter. It’s high time we desperately started searching for good and quality players. BCCI must display the guts to sack big guns and replace them by talented young blood. Even if cricketers like Tendulkar and Dhoni don’t perform and fail to show consistency, then put them out of the team without hesitation. The young cricketers who replace them should be warned to concentrate on improving their skills and learning from mistakes rather than go after big and quick money. Only such drastic steps can revive the Indian cricket team.