Shown the door

Pune Mirror, August 15, 2008

Suhrid Barua

Pune: The new ruling of the BCCI to allow one foreign player in state teams for the upcoming Ranji season has attracted large-scale debate among cricket experts. And no prizes for guessing why the Maharashtra cricket is hard hit by the new ruling - The state association had already unveiled the induction of two foreign players - left-arm medium-pacer Sujeewa De Silva (he has played only three Tests and no ODI for Sri Lanka) and Enamul Haque (he has played 11 Tests for Bangladesh) for the forthcoming season.
As widely reported, the new norms would automatically put Sujeewa out of the equation while Enamul is expected to be part of the State Ranji team dressing room. Maharashtra Cricket Association (MCA) president Ajay Shirke, who attended the recently-held BCCI's technical committee meeting, chaired by batting great Sunil Gavaskar, is a disconsolate man.
Make no mistake, the MCA strongman is not losing sweat for having to do with just one foreign player, but spelt out his unhappiness with the way the BCCI technical committee meeting panned out. "You know what, I attended the board meeting as a special invitee and pressed hard for inclusion of three outstation players (it could be even a foreign player) in the playing XI and was asked to leave the meeting thirty minutes after it got underway," Shirke revealed.
He was appalled at how he was kept in the dark about what decision the technical committee arrived at. "Courtesy would have demanded that the technical committee chairman Sunil Gavaskar inform me of their decision but he or for that matter nobody even bothered to inform me about the new ruling. I only got to know it from the media," fumed the MCA boss.
After the meeting got over, the MCA chief even asked Gavaskar on the logic behind their new ruling of having one foreign player playing at least ten Tests and 20 ODIs. "I asked Sunil Gavaskar as to why the committee took such decision. Mr Gavaskar simply told me that they want quality players to play in the domestic circuit and not want sub-standard players to develop at our cost."
Shirke even cited the examples of players like Shaun Watson, Shaun Marsh and Ajantha Mendis, who are already coveted players despite not having played ten Tests. "Are the BCCI's technical committee trying to suggest that a player who has played ten Tests is of top-class material while a guy who has played nine Tests is useless. Look at Marsh, Watson and Mendis, they are making a statement consistently on the international stage despite failing to meet the board's criteria of ten Tests and 20 ODIs," he thundered.