So we know that India basically ended up playing their entire list of standby players in Australia due to injuries. Two players in particular in that list, Washington Sundar and T Natarajan, got Test caps despite not being anywhere in the red-ball picture and that was understandable. Because they were travelling from Dubai to Australia, it made sense to keep the LOI bowlers as 'net-bowlers' and standbys due to quarantine restrictions.
What has, however, kind of puzzled me is the basis in which they've selected a few standby players/net bowlers for this England series. It does give one a feeling that they've opted for reputation over performance/results. Let's take the example of Rahul Chahar. He was picked as one of the 'standby players' (not even a net bowler) meaning he was directly in-line to get drafted into the squad. Incidentally Axar Patel got injured and he got drafted. But what was the basis of selecting him? In the 2019 Ranji Trophy, he just played 1 match. He did much better, of course, in the 2018 season, picking close to 40 wickets @ 25 but in the last two seasons there have been a ton of other spinners who have done exceptionally well.
Aditya Sarwate, Satyajeet Bachchav, D Jadeja Jalaj Saxena etc have all been tearing the Ranji apart for 3-4 seasons (Saxena for an entire decade lol) yet their names are nowhere to be seen. Even if you look at the net bowlers, there was no place for Jaydev Unadkat, who last season had the best Ranji season by any Indian seamer in the competition's history.
The selection of Axar Patel is curious too. Everyone sees him as a Jadeja-clone because he can bat and bowl left-arm spin, but someone like an Aditya Sarwate has been out-performing him with both bat and ball across the last couple of seasons. Axar, for instance, took 27 wickets @ 22.5 and averaged 25 with the bat in Ranji 2019, while Sarwate took 32 wickets @ 20 and averaged 23 with the bat. In the 2018 Ranji season, Sarwate took 55 wickets @ 19 and averaged 29.50 with the bat, while Axar averaged 13 with the bat and took just 9 wickets @ 34.00
My concern is - what message is it sending to the players busting their arse out in the domestic circuit if they are not even being considered as net bowlers? I understand there could be reasons for picking certain bowlers as net bowlers - to emulate the opponent, to bring variation etc - but this is not something new with Indian cricket. Plenty of Vidarbha, Saurashtra cricketers have spoken about not even being considered for India A selection despite consistent domestic performances. Are India allowing reputation to dictate terms?
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