'What is the use of talent if that player plays so many Tests and averages below 35 after a few years of being in the Indian team?'
India's seniors came in for a lot of criticism after suffering a humiliating 3-0 whitewash at the hands of New Zealand at home.
Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli were big letdowns with the bat, while Ravichandran Ashwin also could not work his magic with the ball in the three-match series.
Former India player Manoj Tiwary believes the Border Gavaskar Trophy series will be vital for the senior players as far as their future in the team is concerned.
"The Australia series will be very important for all the Indian players, maybe after that you can take a call," he tells Rediff.com's Harish Kotian in the second part of an exclusive interview.
Even if Abhimanyu Easwaran doesn't get a match in Australia, do you see him as a long-term opening option for India in the future with Rohit Sharma nearing the end of his career. Do you want the team management to groom Abhimanyu for the role in the future?
I don't believe in grooming a player at the international level. The selection should be very simple -- whoever is performing in domestic cricket should get an opportunity to play for India. There should not be a fixed place for any player. The statistics of the few established players are not up to the international mark.
I understand that a player has talent, but what is the use of talent if that player plays so many Tests and averages below 35 after a few years of being in the Indian team.
Just because he has done well some 5-6 years ago that should not guarantee him a place in the team now. That would be unfair for players in the domestic circuit like Abhimanyu and others, who are really doing well.
I don't think that players should be groomed in the Indian team, they should be kept in the loop by keeping them with the team or playing for India A, spending time at NCA. If he doesn't perform for India, then he should be dropped.
So you are saying the time has come to take some tough calls especially after the New Zealand series loss?
Absolutely. A few players who have poor records just because some people think they are talented they continue to keep their place.
I want to make it clear that I am not talking about Rohit and Virat, they are the core of the team, they have done well for many years. I am talking about the others, who have not done well.
Rohit and Kohli have invited a lot of criticism after their below-par showing in the Test series defeat against New Zealand. What is your take on these two players?
This is not the right time to take a call on these two great players. Rohit has done well as the captain, he has won the T20 World Cup just few months back.
Virat has been quite prolific with the bat across formats, no one can match his records in modern day cricket.
Barring these two, for the rest I think there should be some tough calls taken. At the end of the day, whoever that so-called 'talented' player is who has played a permanent place in the team but averages around 32/33, you have to remember that at one point of time before making his India debut that player was also a first class player only.
So today, if some player is scoring runs consistently in first class cricket, then maybe tomorrow if given a chance he could also go on to become one of the best players in the world. Therefore, it is just a question of getting the opportunities at the right time.
The Australia series will be very important for all the Indian players, maybe after that you can take a call. Sometimes you have to see why the senior players are failing, the seniors also need a pat on the back some times.
The support should not only be verbal, it should be a technical support as well.
The Indian players are failing today because of technical deficiency or fault. As we saw, the batters are technically not up to the mark, either on spinning wickets or in seaming conditions.
A part of our struggles in Test cricket can we put it down to the fact that some players for Test team are picked on how well they do in IPL?
The selectors give importance to the Ranji Trophy, it is not that they don't. But it is unfortunate that in today's times that the selection is based on how much talent a particular player has.
If X has a little bit more talent than Y then they will select X to play. If you see the selections are based on how much talent you have and not on how many runs you have scored at the domestic level, that is a pattern which has started now.
It should not work that way, it should be a good mix of talent and of players who have put in the hard yards in domestic cricket.
If you get Mayank Yadav kind of an express bowler who bowls around 150kph on a regular basis then it is okay, he is a rare talent.
But if you pick players on talent, then you won't get longevity.
In Sachin paaji or Sunil Gavaskar's era you used to have 4-5 players in the Indian team who had longevity because they had to do really well in the Ranji Trophy for many years to get selected. So once they got the opportunity, they didn't let it go because they had put in a lot of hard work to reach there.
That is the reason why during Sunil Gavaskar's era you hardly had one or two spots vacant in the team. You had domestic stalwarts like Rajinder Goel, Padmakar Shivalkar -- two of the great spinners of their time -- but they never got to play for India because the legendary Bishan Singh Bedi was there.
But in today's times, all three would have played for India because you have so many formats and so many matches being played.
So if you don't have players who have longevity then the team is not stable. Like you have seen in recent years, before going to the World Cup we are wondering who will bat at No 4 or who will play at No 6. It results in confusion and this will keep happening.
You said earlier that the Indian players are failing today because of technical deficiency. In domestic cricket in recent years, we have not seen many outstanding young talents challenging for a place in the Indian team, by scoring a lot of big hundreds. Is our batting stocks in domestic cricket going down?
Today they talk about talent, but the only place where we see that batting talent is on flat wickets. We don't see rank turners anymore since they started telecasting Ranji Trophy matches.
Remember, in the past how Ravindra Jadeja used through sides in Ranji Trophy or the other spinners.
What is happening now is that in domestic cricket we are playing on good wickets but the Tests matches are played on spinning tracks. Today, the Indian batters are not used to batting on turning pitches so when they face up against good spinners in Test cricket they struggle.
I would say you should have sporting wickets wherein everyone will have a fair chance, if the batter is good he can score runs, the fast bowler can also get help and the spinners will come into the contest once the wicket wears down.
The red soil pitches should be made mandatory at every cricketing centre, for every association, this will benefit Indian cricket in the future.
