You must be joking, Mr Borde! For once, the Indian captain cannot call the selectors jokers, because he seems to be the perpetrator of some of the cruel jokes, by now endemic, on Indian cricket and young Indian cricketers, to go by media reports. While Sachin Tendulkar's injury must be a big blow to India's aspirations in the Sri Lanka tri-series, the selectors have missed an opportunity to try out a regular opener in his place. I do not subscribe to the view that Shiv Sunder Das should be protected from the evils of one-day batting; the young man appears perfectly capable of handling the challenges of the shorter game with a straight bat. Either he or Sadagopan Ramesh, another much maligned opener, could more easily have stepped into Tendulkar's shoes than Amay Khurasia, resurrected from oblivion, we learn, thanks to the skipper's selective amnesia. Alternatively, the brilliant young pair of Vinayak Mane and Gautam Gambhir would have been an inspired choice. They could play uninhibitedly at the top and enable Ganguly to bat in the vital middle overs.

The selectors' sense of humour comes to the fore when the chairman states: "He (Khurasiya) has been among the runs in recent times. He opened the innings for Madhya Pradesh and Central Zone and did well. He is an excellent striker. He looks like a batsman who can destroy the bowlers." Just change the names of state and zone and this superb comment could apply equally to almost any other opener in India. And Khurasiya has played ten ODIs in which he has aggregated a mere 137 runs.

Young Yuvraj Singh comes back into the squad at the expense of another young left-hander, Dinesh Mongia, whose omission defies logic. Not for a moment am I suggesting that one is better than the other, but every young player deserves to be given a reasonably lengthy trial. Strangely, good form in the nets has been cited as the reason for preferring Yuvraj Singh to Mongia, who played at least one match- winning innings in Zimbabwe. And, if the left hander's pronounced tendency to commit himself on the front foot did not exactly inspire confidence in Zimbabwe, neither did Virendra Sehwag's display suggest that he really belonged to the big league, especially in the bowling department. The double standards when it comes to giving young players a fair trial are even more evident in the sacking of Harvinder Singh.

Rahul Sanghvi's inclusion is about the only rational change made in the tour party, though why he was not selected to tour Zimbabwe will remain a mystery, just as Sairaj Bahutule's selection was. The selectors inform us that the names of the over-the-hill Joshi and the unfit Kartik were discussed. Why should any time be wasted over such pointless discussions?

Mr Lele and Mr Borde are reportedly perturbed that "we are not delivering the goods in the final." One reason could be that all this chopping and changing by the selectors must be doing the Indian team's morale no good. It's time our selectors became accountable to their own consciences rather than their regional bosses.

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