The prerogative to have three guest players has been there, but an amendment that allows a foreign player to play in the Ranji Trophy is an interesting one.
The timing of the A series is impeccable as it will give a good measure of the bench strength apart from providing the cricketers with an excellent opportunity to play against a quality opponent. The current A series featuring India and Australia followed by a tri-series with New Zealand joining the two nations will provide ample opportunities for many aspiring cricketers.
With the Duleep Trophy more or less gradually whittling down to just another tournament in the cricketing calendar, the A series allows not only the players to get a feel of international cricket but also provides the selectors a very good opportunity to assess the calibre of players who have been performing in the domestic circuit. The visiting Australian team has some very good cricketers in its ranks and it will be a very good platform for the cricketers in the reckoning to press their claims for a place in the senior team.
With the Australian senior team set to come over in a few weeks time, good performances will be viewed by the selectors with more than passing interest.
The Australian A teams in the past have fielded some accomplished cricketers as a part of the preparation process and even though they have not acquitted themselves well at Bangalore, they are bound to improve and are capable of turning things around in the remaining matches.
The series will be of great importance for the likes of Badrinath, Mohd. Kaif and Chawla to name a few as they are on the radar of the selectors. Despite a very ordinary performance by the famed Indian batsmen in the Test series in Sri Lanka, I don’t envisage many changes in the middle order, but Badrinath and Kaif have to re-establish their credentials to keep their hopes alive. Piyush Chawla is another aspirant who needs to make a mark in the A series.
The Irani Trophy will be played on the heels of the A series and thereby kick start the domestic season. Talking of the domestic season, a few changes have been put forward in the Ranji Trophy. The teams in the Plate will have an outside chance of winning the Ranji Trophy as the top teams get a berth in the quarter final. While this is a move that will earn all-round appreciation, the rule relating to the guest players will be viewed with mixed feelings.
The prerogative to have three guest players has been there, but an amendment that allows a foreign player to play in the Ranji Trophy is an interesting one. To what extent this will benefit Indian cricket and hasten the growth of cricketers remains to be seen. Obviously, the assumption is that younger cricketers will learn the ropes quickly if they share the dressing room and play alongside international cricketers, but the irony is that our own leading cricketers are only making guest appearances for their respective State sides on account of National duty. A few sides might try to rope in an international cricketer but the flip side of that option will be that a youngster will be deprived of an opportunity. The experiment of making a foreign team participate in the Duleep Trophy should be deemed as a failure as they have not been as competitive as expected. Besides, it will be interesting to see if the foreign players are paid more than the local players. If that happens, then things can go out of hand and it will be a shame as the local players will feel they are short-changed. Even if one chooses to ignore the financial angle, there is not much to gain by the participation of a foreign cricketer, as things stand today.
The move to amend the guest player rule has been strongly mooted from certain quarters in the last few years and now that it has finally happened, it must be pleasing for those who were almost desperate to get the proposal through. Each and every State wants to win the Ranji Trophy and while the fizz and enthusiasm is appreciable, some must understand that outsourcing is not the only solution for all the shortcomings. The key lies in nurturing the prevailing talent at the junior level and moves such as bringing in foreign players can be a double-edged sword.
The English county system also allowed foreign players to play but one cannot say with authority that it helped in the development of cricket in England. The presence of international cricketers in the county circuit brought in crowds and kept the professional cricketers busy all through the year, but very little of note happened in terms of improvement. Let’s hope that the involvement of foreign cricketers proves to be more beneficial for Indian cricket than it did for English cricket.
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