World cup 2015: Exclusion of big names was not a surprise

Indian team for 2015 world cup has been announced. Many medias have expressed shock over the exclusion of `once upon a time’ heroes of team India. But considering the performance of these big names in their recent played games the exclusion is not at all surprising. Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh have struggled to prove their caliber in their last games.

Only Yuvraj has played a game for his country this year over the last 12 months and that was in December last year. None of the five have set domestic cricket alight. Quite the opposite in the case of Sehwag and Yuvraj, while Zaheer has struggled just to be fit enough to play. It would have been foolish and absurd to have picked them when so many others have stronger claims.

 

 All five played an integral part of India’s 2011 World Cup win and that will never be forgotten. But the time has come for India to move on from them and start fresh. This is the way of sports.

Australia won the World Cup in 1999 under Steve Waugh. Four years later, Australia was led by Ricky Ponting and Steve and his brother Mark had wandered off into the sunset. Only five Australia players who played the final in 1999 against Pakistan were in the playing XI against India in 2003. This is normal. Teams don’t stand still, especially over four year cycles. Form ebbs and flows and time takes its toll. All players, however great, eventually lose the ability to perform at the highest level.

It also becomes harder as you get older to keep up in the field. 

 Sehwag, Gambhir and Harbhajan have been vocal in wanting to play in the 2015 World Cup. That’s been a motivating factor for them. Without that potential prize, will they still have the zest and desire to keep going? Or will this drive them to work even harder to prove that contrary to public opinion, they are not, in fact, done? On the other hand Yuvaraj himself had said that he may not get a chance to play in 2015 world cup.

There are also plenty of other opportunities available to cricketers after they retire. Sehwag has already built a school and appears committed to making it the best possible school it can be.

Not making the list of probables would have hurt each of these proud cricketers. But deep down they would have known their chances of making it were slim or none, and slim has left town. As professional sportsmen, they know the drill. Our job is not to weep for them but to make sure their deeds are not forgotten.