From the publishers of THE HINDU Vol. 24 :: No. 38 :: Sep. 22 - 28, 2001	Home Contents
	LETTERS Well done, Harikrishna Sir, - The coverage of the Asian individual chess championship (Sept. 8, 2001) was really interesting. With consistency in his repertoire, Chinese GM Xu Jun comfortably won the title, proving how strong the Chinese are. The Indians also have a reason or two to rejoice as three from the meet qualified for the next World championship, along with Anand and Sasikiran. Let's hope these players perform well in the next World championship. Congrats to Harikrishna for his GM title. The article by P. K. Ajith Kumar was fascinating. Of course, Harikrishna has erased Anand's record by becoming India's youngest GM. But he still has a long way to go to catch up with Anand. Only then can he be considered as a potential threat to top players in the world. VIMAL KUMAR, THIRUVANANTHAPURAM Wake up, BCCI Sir, - The miserable story of India's just-concluded sojourn abroad is a case of history repeating itself. The Lankans won hands down with a total professional display in all the departments of the game. They have definitely set their sights on the 2003 World Cup and are in the right path. The BCCI, with crores of rupees in its kitty, has done precious little in developing the game in the country. Cannot India, which has a population of a billion people, locate six or eight youngsters in the 16 to 19 age-group, 6 feet plus, strong of shoulders and legs? What has the Board done apart from establishing cricket academies by the dozen? It is so clearly apparent that we cannot go ahead in world cricket with midgets as our slow medium opening bowlers. The Board continues to pick the same old squad regardless of performance and results. Why pick Prasad and Srinath who are on the verge of retirement? Why not select promising youngsters and mould their talent? Only our batting openers have done creditably. It is often argued that the middle order can perform when the scoreboard records a good total. But then, our middle order is in a muddle. How is it that Rahul and Sourav cannot judge a run when there was enough time to achieve the target? Why was Dighe in such a hurry? All these defy answers. The captain and the selectors should be taken to task. Employ hard core professionals with a good record and let performance be the criteria for selection. The players are being paid for more than their output. Yet they are a pampered lot. One could go on writing endlessly but what purpose does it serve? It is good that we opted out of the ATC tournament because the writing was on the wall. Only a radical change in thinking can bring about a miraculous cure. M. G. MENON, THRIPUNITHURA Change of guard needed Sir, - India suffered a humiliating defeat in the Test series against Sri Lanka after 16 years and this is the first instance of an innings loss against the Lankans. Over the past few months, the Indian team's performance has slipped from poor to pathetic. India's sloppy batting has to be blamed for this sorry state of affairs. Notwithstanding the injuries to key players, the failure of youngsters has been the main reason for India's dismal performance. In view of this, the selectors will have to do a rethinking on retaining Kaif and Badani for future matches as they have already got their fair share of chances. Also, we need to find a wicketkeeper who is capable of scoring at least a fifty. In the past, apart from Sachin Tendulkar, the batting heroics of Ganguly had been the main reason for India's considerably good showing. But now he is going through such a bad patch. It is apparent that the burden of captaincy, coupled with criticism from the press, is affecting him. We have witnessed many a great knock from him and would love to see him return to form again. SAYED MOHD. AEJAZ, ANKOLA Drastic changes needed Sir, - The Sri Lankans richly deserved to win the Test series. Their attitude during the entire period was aggressive and positive. The bowlers and batsmen performed according to the team plan. The Indian team looked timid, disjointed and bereft of common cricket sense. The batsmen did not build their innings and score big hundreds and the bowlers sprayed the ball all over the place without a modicum of intelligence (except briefly during the second Test). Harbhajan was guilty of bowling a foot short and in being quicker in the air instead of flighting like Murali. That is what one-day cricket does to a strike bowler! The tail began after number four in the batting line-up. The wicketkeeping was pathetic. How can such a team win? Drastic changes are needed in the side. A good wicketkeeper-batsman, an allrounder and a couple of young, determined batsmen, who will take pride in representing India, are needed. Badani is not up to it and Kaif needs a lot of improvement. Shewag could not have performed worse than some of the specialist batsmen in the team! And yes, BCCI has to introduce green, fast, bouncy wickets at home for our batsmen to learn to play fast bowling. DILIP MAHANTY, AUSTRALIA Contents • Daily Sports • The Hindu • Business Line • Frontline • Home Copyrights © 2001 The Sportstar Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Sportstar.