India to play West Indies at home ~ not that fearsome team – and after the series, the debacle at England and elsewhere could be conveniently forgotten !-
The squad for the two-match Test series against West Indies included a number of new faces like Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal and Mohammed Siraj, but one name missing in that list was Rohit Sharma, laments former offie Harbhajan Singh.To him, the right-hander, who guided India to the Asia Cup 2018, being not part of the squad is unacceptable.
But there is another player whose omission everyone should feel sad, more sad for the comments made by a member of the Selection Committee !!..the selection committee consists of 5 members and a convenor. Only the 5 members of the selection committee have voting rights on team selection. The convenor is the Secretary, BCCI for the senior selection team and Jr. Secretary for junior selection team. The 5 members in the selection committee were traditionally selected from the 5 cricket zones – North Zone, Central Zone, West Zone, East Zone, South Zone. One of the 5 members is selected by BCCI as the Chairman of the selection committee. Under pressure from the Lodha committee recommendation, the BCCI scrapped the zonal system in 2016.The Captain and Coach are invited to the selection committee meetings to present their opinions on team players though the captain and coach don't have voting rights in team selection.
Way back in Feb 1972 at Kingston in the 1st Test WI made 508/4 decl and the match was drawn.Roy Fredricks (163) opened with Mc Carew (43)- Lawrence Rowe made his debut hit 214.In a career spanning 8 years, he played 30 tsts making 2047 runs with a triple hundred.He was part of that rebel tour to South Africa, when Pretoria had been banned for the apartheid regime. It was organised and conducted without the approval of West Indies' cricket board. Such tours were in fact outlawed by cricket boards over the world, by governments including the government of Jamaica and by other international organisations like the United Nations.
Jamaicans were clearly upset - life wasn't easy for Rowe after that fatal tour. There were reports that he would hide in the Kingston club to watch Tests in Sabina Park. There was anger in the air. Time is a healer. Years later in 2011, Lawrence Rowe was honoured by the Jamaican Cricket Association (JCA) by dedicating a stand after his name at the Sabina Park. He chose the moment to apologize for his past conduct that had angered and upset the Jamaican population to the extent that the right-hander had to leave the Caribbean and settle in the United States.
Incidentally, he did not play in 1974-75 tour to India – perhaps that allowed Alvin Kalicharran and Viv Richards to get a place and prosper. Read that he was sent back home for treatment of a stye on his eyelid, he was discovered by an ophthalmic surgeon to have eyesight better than 20-20, and could read the maker's name on the optical chart. But he also had teryginum, a disease involving vision-blurring growths: they had almost completely covered his right eye and were on the way to obscuring vision in the left.
"Communication has always been the strong point of this committee," MSK Prasad is quoted as saying !!"It's really tough to inform any unpleasant news to any player. You need to have valid reasons to explain them about their exclusion though they may not agree with it. "Having said that, we are very clear and candid in our communication process. My colleague Devang Gandhi spoke to Karun Nair at length in England to keep him motivated and wait for his opportunities."