Selectors Pressurised By Captain Rahul Dravid To Retain Beleagured Virender Sehwag — Dravid Not Comfortable With “Seniors”

Submitted by Sudhakar Shanbhag on Fri, 2007-04-20 15:43.

The BCCI selectors reportedly informed Sachin Tendulkar and Sourav Ganguly that they would be “rested” for the ODI series in Bangladesh before the selection meeting took place in Mumbai on Friday. It is also learnt that skipper Rahul Dravid was not “comfortable” with the seniors being chosen in the ODI team and hence the likes of Tendulkar and Ganguly were â??restedâ?.

That apart, out-of-form, Virender Sehwag was retained in the one-day squad on captain Rahul Dravidâ?(tm)s insistence. The whole selection panel was in favour of dropping Virender Sehwag for the Bangladesh tour and was retained in the ODI team only on the insistence of Dravid, a selector informed. Captainâ?(tm)s pressure compelled the selectors to include Sehwag, despite his poor run of form. The selection panel agreed to retain him for the one-day team only on one reason — he scored a century against Bermuda in the World Cup.

After Chappell and Dravid combination
had convincingly destroyed their team of “young legs”,
Ganguly had to be sent out to South Africa to hide their blushes.
After a sequence of successful innings and a Man of the Series,
he had to be “rested”.
He has played on 10 ODIs since his return.

Following our early dismissal from WCC, scapegoats had to be found.
Chappell had leaked messages out about senior players acting like ‘mafias’.
Seven senior players resented that underhand allegations and challanged him.
For the first time in his seventeen year career, Tendulkar spoke out in reply.
And agreed to represent these players in their meeting with BCCI.
Instead of facing the players allegations, Chappell resigned.
We will not know what the players would have said.
That meeting never took place.

Rahul Dravid, the so called ‘gentleman’ in the team
gave his silent support to the cowardly act of Greg Chappell.
Instead of standing up for his team mates,
he chose to stand by a failed coach
for the sole reason, without Greg, he is finished.
Oh, extremely nifty is our Dravid with a knife from the back.

Why wouldn’t he want Tendulkar or Ganguly in the team.
Not only are they better ODI batsmen than him,
not only do they both have dual attributes as bowlers
they are the likely immediate replacement as captain.
It must be sheer desperation that he wants Sehwag.
To block an opening position, favoured by both these players.

Rahul Dravid’s days are numbered.
His mentor Greg has deserted him,
its time for him to go too.
Hasn’t he damaged our team enough?
Time for him to take a leaf out of his Guruâ?(tm)s book and resign.

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