Clayton Murzello Column: Didn't 3 non-Test men select Virat?

The Board of Control for Cricket in India BCCI now interacts with the media more often than before Apart from press releases that provide very basic information even the chairman of selectors faces the media after every important selection committee meetingCynics would attribute the new level of communication to the BCCI being pressurised to be more transparent thanks to the Lodha Commission For the mere consumer of information itrsquos a good departure from the nottoodistant past when the BCCI was like the Great Wall of ChinaVirat Kohli before the start of the second Test against South Africa at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore in November PicPTIIt seems ironic that in this year of change certain members of the Indian team have wielded their axe at the media This has led to an uneasy relationshipTest skipper Virat Kohlirsquos recent outburst at former players airing their views is actually an indirect attack on the media because thatrsquos where those opinions appearKohli spoke out after the fourth Test in Delhi in an interview for the BCCI website ldquoSomeone who hasnrsquot played for the country has no right to comment on an international cricketer anywayrdquo he said Since Kohli was responding to a question relating to former players this was meant for them Hopefully Kohli realises that the national selection committee that picked him to debut for India in 2008 had three nonTest players mdash Sanjay Jagdale Ranjib Biswal and former ODI pacer Bhupinder Singh and surely a good amount of discussion went into picking himThe crux of this current heartburn is the type of pitches dished out for the India vs South Africa Test series The players reckon they should have been given more credit for their performance that resulted in a 30 win over the World No 1 team and they deserved that kudos However while driving home that point a lot of mindless things were saidI wonder whether the current fractious situation would have come to pass had the Ravi ShastriSudhir Naik controversy not blown up at the end of the oneday international series in Mumbai That controversy only showed that India were hell bent on turners to win and the media was always going to have a field day with this kind of storyNot many in the media were willing to read too much into that lsquopatchuprsquo meeting with Shastri and Naik at Wankhede Stadium It appeared Naik was coerced into sealing his lips but he wonrsquot be quiet for long I hear he is keen to write his autobiography so we may have not seen the dying embers of the controversyWhen the Test series began there were critical comments made about the Mohali pitch It was in this Test match that offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin who was brilliant throughout the series bowled a different line when he didnrsquot have a ball in his hands At the end of Day Two of that Test when talk revolved around the pitch he reportedly said ldquoI donrsquot know if any Indian journalist knows the name of the curator in Johannesburg or Port Elizabeth but we seem to get a hang of Daljit Singh very quickly None of us go to South Africa and say the wicket is green this much grass is less green at the bottomrdquoAshwin appears cerebral but did he expect no talk about the Mohali pitch which by that evening witnessed the fall of 22 wickets Isnrsquot it natural for the media to mention the man who supervised the preparation of an underfocus wicket And any defence of the Nagpur wicket for the third Test is bizarre because no batsman managed to surpass M Vijayrsquos 40 in the Test The standard of international batting canrsquot be so bad The scoreboard does not always lie tooThere will always be problems when some sections of the press donrsquot fully appreciate the amount of skill it takes to succeed at the highest level Likewise there will be some amount of controversy when players start telling the media how they should go about their jobsIf both parties realise that one manrsquos ceiling is the other manrsquos floor there will be fewer examples of the media pointing to turning pitches while judging the significance of an emphatic series win and captains accusing the media of finding new ways to criticise his teamThere should never be a lsquowaittillIgetyoursquo attitude in the playersmedia relationship but this is now a real possibilityWonder who is more eager to see the scoreline in next yearrsquos oneday series in Australia mdash the players or the mediamiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzello Send your feedback to mailbagmiddaycom