Cricket: Karnataka's export quality in demand

Bengaluru: The collective hygiene of a state’s cricketing structure and its successful management is usually reflected in their consistency with winning on the domestic circuit and the number of names they can push out to the grander cause, aka the Indian team. 

By that, Karnataka has been one of the most successful domestic outfits of all time even if the last decade of not winning the Ranji Trophy is taken in the stride. But, in Karnataka's case, there is another metric by which you can infer the quality of its grassroots programme, and the versatility and value of the players who come from this petri dish of super talent.

Karnataka’s players have been among the most fancied professional cricketers on the domestic circuit for a while, but if there ever was a season which was emblematic of their acumen, it is this one for there are ten players donning jerseys of other states. In some cases, they even have become the vertebrae of these said sides. 

Take Karun Nair for example. The man finished the Vijay Hazare Trophy with 779 runs at an average of 389.50 for Vidarbha. Mind you, that average stood in the vicinity of 700 until his dismissal for 27 against Karnataka in the final. While he isn’t Vidarbha’s red-ball skipper, he surely played his part in the white-ball leg as the captain.  

The case is much the same with R Samarth. After being ignored by selectors due to lack of solid performances, the 32-year-old took his talents to Uttarakhand, and this season he scored 649 runs from seven Ranji Trophy matches at an average of 54.08. 

While leaving out players of this calibre could be perceived as the selectors being hasty in their decision-making, Karnataka chief selector J Abhiram insisted that the management has their eyes on the future and will continue to make some tough calls. 

“Take KV Siddharth for instance. He wanted assurance that he was going to play in all three formats,” started off Abhiram. “I told him he was fine for red-ball cricket but I couldn’t promise him a spot in the other two formats. So he moved. 

“See, I don’t feel bad about players asking us for NOCs and moving away because we have so much talent in this State. We're now looking at the rise of (R) Smaran and (KV) Aneesh and if we continued to keep people like Manish (Pandey), who don’t have a future, we wouldn’t have seen these boys rise. These are not tough decisions, these are decisions to ensure the health of Karnataka cricket and as a result the health of Indian cricket.”

While this level of clarity is refreshing, Ganesh insists it wasn't the case in the past. It's a bone of contention which is supposed to have frayed K Gowtham and Manish's relationship with the association or at least some of the members in the management. 

"The way players are treated can be better," says Ganesh, looking back on his decision to move out in 2014. "Players get disillusioned and move out. Clear communication isn’t there. We knew there was always going to be healthy competition in the side because so many of the players were playing for the Indian side at the time, but when they would come back from their international assignments, we would be on the bench so a decision had to be made."

While Ganesh's call brought him a couple of Ranji Trophy titles with Vidarbha, most others have not been so successful in collecting silverware. Also, in some cases such as Vinay, there was a desire to step away and give the younger lot a chance to succeed in Karnataka, while becoming playing-mentors for young players on other teams. 

"We were not sure if we would get a chance to play despite our services for the State, and that's not because of any selection bias," says Amit Verma. "There was so much talent on that side that we had to sit out. That's why the three of us (Ganesh, KB Pawan and I) took the call to move out around the same time."

The decision would have been a hard one no doubt because Amit had been more than productive in the seasons which preceded the 2013-14 season - the first of the double-treble years. 

".... yeah, it was a tough one because I had played with a number of them through age-group cricket," he says. "But then you have to be a bit selfish because you need to play. I have never been in a situation where I had to choose between Karnataka and anything, not even my own performances, but when faced with that call, I had to look out for myself."

And, we cannot fathom how hard it is for most of these players to put on another jersey in another land for another team as a professional player when all you have done is play for Karnataka for the most part of your life.

Then again, these are the calls one has made in the past and one will continue to make in the future because there has never been a dearth for talent in Karnataka and it seems like there will be a continuity to that narrative.