Many cricket cricket critics and media managers in india are found to be dwelling unnecessarily on a self-created controversy and comparision between the past and the present,the experienced and the budding without,in fact,making any indepth study of cricketing abilities and requirements,performances and sensibilities in the context of the game. The young and the experienced are complimentary to each other and it is the game of cricket that predominates tne both.merely because somebody is older than somebody else does not necessarily mean that the later is better than the former or vice versa so long as either of them continues to give superlative performance and lucid consistency.both greenidge and haynes of west indies were in their late 30s or early 40s when they continued to mismerise the world by their batting abilities.bob simpson in his mid-40s staged wonderful comeback for australia and saved a test series against india when their best team was hijacked by kerry packer.gavasker was the undisputed batting maestro of the world when he called it a day when he was 39.of course,nobody knows what will happen to indian cricket when tendulkar retires.all three big men of indian cricket have acquired skill over a long period of time and without them it has been proved time and again that we cannot draw matches what to speak of winning any.hence,it is imperative that no indian team can be thought of without them until real replacements of oft-proven talents are available in the country.
They are indispensible to the team so long as their replacements continue to elude the indian cricketing firmament.winning 20/20 is definitely creditable ; but it is merely a flash in the pan as the budding youngsters are proving to be non-performing assets in the bigger version of the game,viz. 50/50 or test cricket where patience,perseverence,concentration,keenness and endurance are touch-stones of success. However,whatever a section of critics may feel,the fact remains that the lovers of the game are performance-thirsty and non-performing youths are in no way better than performing old warriors.no country in recent years has changed its old players to give chances to new ones.exception may be the zimbabwian team ; but with what result! The cricket team of zimbabwe is at the bottom of the ranking table and even debarred from playing test cricket for two years for their sip-sod performance.we may therefore safely conclude that experience should not be allowed to suffer in the name of youth and youth should not be neglected in the name of non-performing experience.performance-oriented selection has to be the guiding force if india is to make an indelible impact in the cricketing world with more focus on talent-hunt on cross-country basis without any zonal or age bias.our recent world cup failure in 50/50 category is the outcome of the mindset that it is the youth rather than the experienced which are going to deliver.too much hang-over produced a situation where- whom- to- prefer- over- whom landed us in a situation where performance was sidelined and the topsy-turvy batting order showed every plaer in a new role with novice performance as they were learning the trck of the trade in respective batting positions for the first time.
