The vicarious pleasure of being a one-man selection committee

Raju Korti
Selecting the best playing eleven is the most thankless job. Ask the cricket selection committee members, they will tell you they have more brickbats coming their way than bouquets. In a country where cricket is a logo for nationalism, the game becomes a strange mix of binding as well as divisive force. Just about everyone who believes he knows the game is an expert commentator and has his two cents to offer on the teams selected.

I suspect even players in the reckoning are disgruntled when they are left out of the playing eleven or for an overseas tour. Expediency keeps their mouth shut but occasionally, some do let their angst out like Mohinder Amarnath did when he called the selection committee as "bunch of jokers" after he was sidelined in 1989. Amarnath probably drew his guts following his reputation as the best player of fast bowling at his peak. That didn't change matters. Neither the selectors budged nor Amarnath had any regrets.

Since then on, selector bashing has become a norm. Farookh Engineer poked fun at the selectors calling them "Mickey Mouse Committee." In his righteous indignation, Yuvraj also called "their thinking  in terms of modern day cricket not up to the mark." The story in other playing nations is not much different. Remember Shoaib Akhtar who took a dig at the selectors saying "players in Pakistan are chosen on the basis of their connections." The relations between the players and the selection committee are forever on the tenterhooks, the prime example being the never-any-love-lost between West Indies cricket board and its players.  

If the role of the respective cricketing boards have come under constant scrutiny, a new fad has emerged in recent times where players and cricket lovers give their fantasy a fight to come out with their own All Time Eleven. It has, of course, academic interest but it nevertheless generates a fierce debate on the choices. Every now and then past greats come out with their best playing eleven of the world. Since they are subjective and based on their individual perceptions, they become contentious. The controversy makes a great cud to chew on.

Apparently made on "merit", the pitch is queered when the selections are neither subjective nor perceptive but made with patriotism in mind. Some time ago, Australia's Michael Clark's All Time Best Playing Eleven had as many as six Aussie players. Yesterday, the mercurial Shahid Afridi named five Pakistani players in his All Time Best. These have Gavaskar or a Tendulkar or a Viv Richards as apologies thrown in because it would be too much to have only one nation representing the world. If it has to be an Indian, you might find at least six to seven Indian players -- no prizes for guessing who and why. That goes for individual players as well. You just have to say that Virat is the best, and there will be people pouncing on you with the names of Babar Azam, Steve Smith, Joe Root or even Kane Williamson.  

I recall Khalid Ansari, the Editor of Sportsweek while taking a jibe at the national selectors told me "the selection committee is not happy until ten players are from (then) Bombay and the eleventh is Venkataraghavan. Regionalism, nationalism make short work of merit when you known state associations pitch for their own players in the side on the pretext of quota. Dissensions and bickering are to be expected when the team becomes a collection of assorted players who are in the team more because of the state they belong to than to the country.

One must give it to those who opt to become selectors for all the flak they get all the time. People engaged with the game studiously keep away from the hot seat to avoid criticism that is anyhow inevitable. Who wants to be at the receiving end of public criticism? Besides, keeping away from the hot seat gives them the licence to criticize at will. It is easy to make selections without being an official selector. So pick your players and announce them. They will question your judgement but you will be spared of the joker tag not discounting the vicarious pleasure of ruffling feathers for fun. 

By the way, I have been exercising my brains since yesterday over my World's Best All Time Eleven. It is likely that at the end of the names, I may have to write Jai Hind!