Yuvraj Dilemma

In Indian Cricket, every season of cricket starts with a tag, with a dilemma, with a debate. Latest one is ‘Should Yuvraj be given a place in Indian Middle order considering his excellent ODI form?’ People even go onto say he is in the form of his life. But the simple analysis which every one might have done by this time is who should be dropped? Well here is my take on this which is quite different from others.

Sachin, Rahul, Saurav and Laxman are better batsmen at any point of time than Yuvraj. We also need to see that all these are scoring runs consistently as well. Only the few mindless critics can compare class of Laxman with Yuvraj. Yuvi is a great batsmen, but needs to come a long way yet and he should be happy as he is waiting for the good. So in simple terms, none of these 4 batsmen can be replaced by young yuvi.

Now, is Yuvi ready to open batting for India? I don’t think it’s a good idea. I feel it’s more mental adjustments need to be done than technical tunings. So let him do what best he can do in middle order. With these we leave out the option of dropping either Jaffer or Karthik. Now for blaming Karthik’s poor form, don’t make Rahul to open the batting to make place for Yuvi.

So the left out option is our deputy, Dhoni. If we are ok with Karthik keeping the wickets for us in test matches, why not ask this regular keeper to keep wickets and bring in Yuvi for Dhoni. Under any circumstance, Yuvi is better than Dhoni in technique, in shot selection, in temperament, in class or even in style. So why not drop Dhoni? He is doing a fair enough job as Keeper/batsman/skipper in ODIs and T20s, let him free for those form of the cricket.

It’s a high time. Yuvi has to be the next leader for Indian cricket. He must be given opportunity soon. When you can expect Rahul to play so many roles as a cricketer and may ask him to open innings many times why can’t we ask Dhoni to sit out for the sake of betterment of Indian batting order? Why can’t he be asked for sacrifice?


(Preview of Indo-Pak test series, 2007)