Why India should not field the seniors in t20 internationals.

India is not in the pink of health in any form of cricket is probably a huge understatement. This I say because of the recent test performances aside, even the one day form has not been great for India. Since the world cup, India has not won a single one day series against any team apart from Sri Lanka and the West Indies away from home. This is just the bi-lateral side of it. India has not performed exceedingly well in the two one day tournaments which had more than two teams participating in it subsequent to the world cup. Even in the world cup had it not been for New Zealand, India could not have won the world cup. India did not have to face South Africa in any of the knock out matches. India did not have an equal match apart from South Africa in the world cup. But the South Africans had a problem of their own, choking at the moment that matters. This has been the state of Indian cricket for a while now. The world cup has been over for almost two years now and the team is still basking in it's glory. Not that it is wrong, but we have to move on some time.

This complacence has spilled into the test arena. The performances outside India in the recent past should sting the players to perform better. But that has not been the case. Neither Gambhir nor Sehwag have looked to lift their game. They are the two stalwarts of the Indian batting order after Sachin Tendulkar and will probably remain that way for a while to come. Team India does not have a replacement for the retired greats as yet. India is still struggling to find a proper replacement for Anil Kumble and Saurav Ganguly. None of the retired greats had the impact that Sehwag does. When he goes at it, the opposition gives up. When he does not perform, the middle order looks a lot more brittle than in it should. India does have a very brittle middle order in the longer formats of the game and apparently in the shortest format too, partnerships at the top and middle order seem to be very hard to come by. The disease has seeped into every form of the game that the team is playing. Virat Kohli for the present tea, has become the Sachin Tendulkar of the 90's Indian Team.

IPL is partly to be blamed for the decline. But it is a necessary evil so trashing it will not help anybody's case. BCCI for all its arm twisting in the ICC does not seem to control the attitudes of the players at all. More than the scores that Sehwag has produced for the last couple of years, it is the way in which he gets out that is most worrisome. Gambhir has not sorted out his fending problem outside the off stump. Rohit Sharma is being given all the chances Manoj Tiwari or S Badrinath should be getting. In return the performances speak for themselves. M.S. Dhoni remains the captain of the test team after 8 losses in 11 consecutive matches. India's bowling seems to be a non entity at this point of time. India has had a hard time finding the replacements for the fab four that have reitred, this being the case, one shudders to think what would happen when Zaheer Khan retires. That should be sometime in the recent future. One cannot see him travelling to Australia for the next one day world cup.

The problems seem endless and the management seems to be content on doing nothing about it. Sitting on a problem never solved one. Proactive steps need to be taken. The world t20 team should not have had Sehwag, Gambhir, Zaheer Khan, Dhoni, Yuvraj Singh or Harbhajhan Singh. This was the right platform to test new talent. CSK fans must take note that India has jnot won a single super 8 match since it had won the world cup back in '07. Virat Kohli or R Ashwin should have captained the team while Vijay and Rahane opened. India could have probably retained Dhoni just for his keeping abilities which is not much in itself. the replacement for Dhoni could be the young kid on the block Smit Patel. If the selectors felt that Vijay was too old for making a comeback, they should have roped in Unmukt Chand. Indian bowling has not been their dtrong suit ever so commenting on it is just a waste of time. This has been the case due to negligence of proper care to budding bowlers in India. This is fast becoming the norm with the batsmen also. One hopes that this changes and the new selection team makes a few proactive changes to the team that looks like the shadow of the team that won the world cup two years ago.