A few pointers for the selectors
The two premier one day competitions in the country are the Deodhar Trophy and Wills Trophy tournaments
Partab Ramchand
01-Feb-2000
The two premier one day competitions in the country are the Deodhar
Trophy and Wills Trophy tournaments. While the former competition was
inaugurated in the 1973-74 season, the latter was started in
1977-78. With the growing popularity of one day cricket, a second
tournament to judge the ability of the players was a welcome addition
to the domestic cricket calendar. And over the years the two
competitions have helped hone the skills of young players hoping to
don the India cap.
The selectors could not have picked up much by way of information in
the Wills Trophy tournament held earlier in January. One probable
reason was the knock out format of the competition. The Deodhar
Trophy tournament, held at various centres in the West Zone, would
have thrown up more pointers for the selectors to consider, given its
round robin format. The players welcomed the opportunity of getting
more chances to display their skills and a few of them must have
caught the selectors' eyes.
Of course, given the nature of the pitches the matches were played on,
one must take the big scores maintained by the teams or the centuries
notched up by some players with a pinch of salt. But in a way, that
would be uncharitable to the efforts of J Arun Kumar, S Sharath and
Vinod Kambli who each got two hundreds. All three have been among the
runs this season, as indicated by their form in the Ranji Trophy and
Duleep Trophy matches. The docile wickets and amiable bowling may
devalue their knocks and raise questions as to how they would fare on
faster tracks and against international quality attacks. But for a
start, they will at least have to be considered for selection for the
various India teams for the Challenger tournament to be held in
Ahmedabad.
Up for consideration will also be players like Virendra Shewag, Pankaj
Dharmani, Saba Karim, Vikram Rathour, Gagan Khoda, Devendra Bundela,
Sitanshu Kotak, Nikhil Haldipur, Amol Muzumdar, S Mahesh and Jai P
Yadav. The tournament also came in handy for established players like
Ajay Jadeja to work themselves back into form and the North Zone all
rounder did not disappoint his fans by scoring a couple of half
centuries and doing his bit with the ball too.
Conversely, on batsman oriented pitches if big scores have to be taken
with a pinch of salt, bowlers who do well on these surfaces must be
encouraged. And here the efforts of Robin Singh (jr), Amit Bhandari
and Sharandeep Singh are really to be commended. Robin took three
wickets against West Zone and four against Central Zone. Sharandeep
picked up three wickets against East Zone while Bhandari captured
three each against East Zone and South Zone. The Delhi medium pacer's
opening spell in the `final' against South Zone when he dismissed the
in form Arun Kumar, Reuben Paul and Md Azharuddin virtually clinched
the trophy for North Zone.
Overall however it remained a very typical Deodhar Trophy tournament
with the bat dominating. Teams chasing 300 plus and just falling
short, teams chasing 300 plus successfully, teams chasing 300 plus and
winning with ten overs to spare, totals of 275 for seven, 272 for four
and 278 for eight posing no challenge for the opponents. Only in one
match out of ten did the ball dominate. But then, this is what Indian
domestic cricket is all about.