'Little guy' Unmukt Chand is quite amazing: Ian Chappell

How impressed are you with Unmukt Chandrsquos captaincy and sixhitting Chand is a good captain He tends to stay ahead of the game which is an important part of captaincy and in other words he is proactive not reactiveu00a0 He is technically a good batsman and so on but to see such power from a little guy is quite amazing The sixes he hit and not just in the final he hit them in some other games as well ndash were terrific Obviously he is a very good timer of the ball but a couple of times he cleared the boundary a hell of a long way and that is surprising Super skipper India Unmukt Chand calls the shots on the field PicGetty Images We are always talking about the need to get on to the next group of players So what message should this triumph send out to our senior selectors If you are talking about the current national selection committee this under19 World Cup win doesnrsquot send out any message because I donrsquot think they are very good I believe India is getting a new panel of selectors in September and hopefully that one will be better than the current one The panel do not have any idea about succession plans moving the older players on gradually and bringing younger ones in gradually so that you donrsquot have a whole bunch together The important thing is to keep challenging young players until they reach the top or reach a level where they canrsquot go any further Chand is in the India lsquoArsquo side which is not a bad progression but Irsquod be fast tracking him towards international level otherwise you are going to leave him too long at a lower level And thatrsquos where the selectors come in right Yeah But from what I have seen of Indian selection in the last few years I donrsquot have any faith of them progressing the way they should They selectors have this misguided feeling that if they win trophies it makes them good selectors Thatrsquos rubbish in my book What makes you good selectors is getting guys to the international level at the time they should get there and that is a matter of picking players on their ability and not age The fact that Harmeet Singh and Chand are playing at the under19 level is ridiculous If there wasnrsquot any cricket on in India Irsquod accept it but you have other cricket going on and these guys should be playing at a higher level Three under19 World Cup wins and now on par with Australia What would you put that down to I wouldnrsquot be getting too excited about it Winning tournaments at the under19 level doesnrsquot necessarily mean the future looks rosy because a lot of players who are good at that level might not go any further So while it might look good in the trophy cabinet as well as when you are reporting to your superiors I donrsquot think it is all that important So how does a team cash in on an under19 World Cup win Look there will be a certain percentage of those fellows who will never go on to be anything and it will probably be the bulk of them The important thing is to get the fellows who are really good moving up the line quickly so that they donrsquot stagnate There are probably five to six guys in this team that you should be fasttracking How much did you enjoy commentating on a junior tournament It was good I like it because you get a chance to see young players ndash hopefully you see them when they are starting out and in a couple of yearsrsquo time when become good players We are surprised by your take on Harmeet Singh According to you he is Indiarsquos best bowler at all levelshellip Hersquos better than Harbhajan Singh I have a lot of time for R Ashwin Hersquos a good competitor but technically as a spinner Harmeet is a better bowler than him right now There are so many batsmen now that donrsquot want to use their feet and this guy is the worst possible nightmare for these batsmen You could see Bosisto Australia captain today He didnrsquot want to leave his crease but was getting dragged out of his crease because the bowling was so tantalising There will be thousands in India who will disagree with me but in my book there is no contest between Harmeet and Pragyan Ojha PHOTOS What a day in Oz land