India cap should be BCCI’s property
Categories: Sunil Gavaskar
That the Australians can never be written off can be seen by the manner in which they have played in Sri Lanka. It is not the easiest of places to play simply because of the heat and humidity that can sap the energies of the fittest of players and even the local players sometimes struggle with it. The pitches are typical of the sub-continent where they are either too loaded in favour of the batsmen or they are bowler friendly to an extent where batsmen have little chance. The Australians seldom give up and that is the feature of their cricket. Even in tough situations they will fight it out and not surrender. That’s why a win against the Australians is savoured more than other teams simply because the winner knows that they have earned it the hard way. With Ricky Ponting back home in Australia to be at the side of his wife, who was delivering their second baby, the doors were opened for Shaun Marsh to make his debut and it was terrific of Cricket Australia to fly his father Geoff all the way from Perth to Sri Lanka, so that he could present his son his first Test cap. The manner in which Shaun has started with a century, it does look that it will be a successful career and not just the odd cap one. Getting one’s first national cap is a proud moment indeed.
Unfortunately in India it has been trivialised by the plethora of caps given to the players by the sponsors, who clearly have little or no idea about the importance of the cap. It is sent alongwith the rest of the clothing and so even if the player does not actually play for India, he still gets a cap. The cap should be the property of the BCCI and only BCCI should give it to the players.
Only yesterday, Geoff Boycott, the England legend was called upon to hand over the cap to Jon Bairstow, not only because he was a Yorkshireman who played for England, but also because David, Jon’s father played with Geoffrey for Yorkshire and England.
If Shaun Marsh got a century on debut there was another left-hander Mike Hussey, who also bats as if his life depends on it. He too got a ton and it was their partnership that put Australia in a dominant position. Mohammad Hafeez continued his good form against Zimbabwe. There were some good performances by the Indians. However there are three CEAT Cricketers of the Week and they are Hussey, Marsh and Hafeez.