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They also said the likes of S Badrinath, M Vijay and R Ashwin were dished out lucrative contracts not so much on cricketing merits as due to their proximity to the power centres of the sport in the country.
Indian cricket has a long history of conspiracy theories and regional biases, not all but mostly unfounded. So, sample this. The chairman of the selection committee is from Tamil Nadu, as is the convenor of selectors who is also the BCCI secretary. Messers Krishnamachari Srikkanth and N Srinivasan respectively have been accused several times in the last one year of favouring their own men.
On Thursday, with Srikkanth and Srinivasan not merely in attendance but also in a position of strength, history of the dubious kind was created in Chennai. With the omission from the one-day side of Dinesh Kaarthick and Dravid, for the first time in recent memory, there is no South Zone representation in the national squad. Not a bad advertisement for lack of favouritism, that, even if it comes at a heavy price!
End of story? Not quite. On that same ‘historic’ day for the region, two former Indian players, both an integral part of the national side for the last two and a half years, were unceremoniously given the boot.
Call it coincidence, a strange quirk of fate or downright poor timing, bowling coach Venkatesh Prasad hails from Bangalore, fielding coach Robin Singh, born in Trinidad, is now a son of Tamil Nadu. Is that insult to injury, or what?!