So an injured Sachin Tendulkar is considered fit enough to represent the World XI? It is strange that eminent former cricketers like Sunil Gavaskar, Clive Lloyd, Aravinda D?Silva, Richard Hadlee, Jonty Rhodes and Mike Atherton should select a man for the World XI who is down and out with an injury and has not played any cricket recently.

If Tendulkar, despite his injury and absence from cricket, is still the ideal choice to play for the World XI in Australia next October, then, it must be said, that the great faith we had in the cricketing credibility of the six wise men would certainly be open to questions.

What could the reason be to choose a man who is totally unfit to play cricket? Has this got anything to do with the sponsorship deals? Or is it a way to convey to cricket addicts that the selectors do not care about form or fitness?

In the World XI announced recently, Inzamam-ul Haque has been omitted from both the teams! Not only is he among the most successful of all the contemporary batsmen, he has also been extremely prolific in the last one year, with an average of 94 in tests and 51 in one-dayers. Inzamam has aggregates of 10,000-plus in one-day internationals and 7,000-plus in tests. Such consistency is beyond the ability of the players who have been chosen ahead of him. Can anyone in his right senses visualize Kevin Pieterson to be more deserving than Inzamam? Can one find any rationale for selecting Shaheed Afridi ahead of Anil Kumble?

Bad choice

As for the choice of captain, Shaun Pollock and Graeme Smith have been selected ahead of far more deserving men, particularly Stephen Fleming. The Kiwi captain has done wonders for his non-star-studded team whereas Pollock is not even his country?s captain now. And what has Smith achieved recently as skipper? Similarly, Tendulkar has been given the honour of being the vice-captain of the World XI in the one-dayers when he is behind Ganguly, Dravid and even Sehwag in the India captaincy line-up at present.

The issue here is that deserving people are being denied their rightful honour. Such arbitrary selections are also an insult to the intelligence of cricket lovers. This peculiar selection policy would, in time, become a precedent at various levels of cricket. Selectors could now disregard injuries and select their favourite players, thereby making a mockery of physical fitness. Even the form of players could take the back seat.

Little integrity

In 1982, Mumbai?s Suru Naik was selected ahead of Mohinder Amarnath as an all-rounder. No place could be found in the England-bound Indian team for Amarnath, who was to become the player of the 1983 World Cup in the following year. Such anomalies and incongruities in the selectors? thinking have done great harm to the game and to the careers of deserving players.

Even later, while consistent performers, like Praveen Amre and Padmakar Shivalkar among others, never got their rightful due, very average players like Raju Kulkarni, Paras Mhambrey, Abey Kuruvilla, Nilesh Kulkarni, Hrishikesh Kanitkar, Atul Wassan, Vivek Razdan, Gursharan Singh, Noel David, David Johnson, Bharat Arun and others were selected in the national team because of selectors? preferences and other pressures.

The national selectors who made such quixotic choices were generally former players of mediocre merit. The argument in the media during these selections was that since the selectors were ordinary players themselves, their integrity would be low too!

Now with former greats churning out similar injustice, would we question their integrity as well? The performance of the panel of World XI selectors does no justice to their stupendous cricketing abilities.