CRICKET VIRAL

The International Cricket Council (ICC) must get its act-together otherwise, the game which we love and respect so much starts to lose credibility. One look at the truck loads of runs Virat Kohli and Steve Smith, are piling on, the admirer, the passionate supporter and the fan of cricket in me falls short of words for the praise their feat richly deserves. Virat Kohli’s five double hundreds in a calendar year the highest by any captain and the ease by which Steve Smith keep scoring big and important runs in the ongoing 2017, Ashes (incidentally, at the time of writing this article, the third test at Perth is in progress, and Smith is 200+ not out overnight) compels me think, about the level these two players have already reached, and my mind immediately starts to compare them with game’s best of all time like Sir Don Bradman and Sachin Tendulkar. I know that it is a folly to compare greats of different generations, as those times were different, so are the present times. My

First things first, here is India’s 17 member squad for the three match Test series in South Africa with the first test beginning from the 5 th of January, 2018 at Cape Town . Virat Kohli (captain), Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Shikhar Dhawan, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane (vice captain), Rohit Sharma, Ravinder Jadeja, Wriddhiman Saha (wicket keeper), Ravichanadran Ashwin, Parthiv Patel (reserve wicket keeper), Hardik Pandya, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Sami and Umesh Yadav. When I failed to spot either of Kuldeep Yadav or Yuzvendra Chahal in the list of players selected while I scanned through the squad a second time, a question spurred in my mind, what were the selectors thinking? Or for that matter, what was Virat and the think tank’s reasoning behind this absurd decision. I understand selecting a team is solely the selector’s responsibility, but still, I am sure Virat would have been consulted prior to the finalizing of the squad. Why not t