Selectors' minds work in mysterious ways

Scoring centuries does not seem to count for much these days. Just one day after making a fine 110, Sadagoppan Ramesh finds himself no closer to Test selection than a week ago. The national selectors decided instead that Akash Chopra - who scored a hundred himself last week at Vishakapatnam - should partner Virender Sehwag at the top of the order. Having decided to open with someone who has no previous Test experience, the selectors continued in the same vein. They picked Aavishkar Salvi and Lakshmipathy Balaji ahead of Ajit Agarkar. Just to introduce an element of the contrary, Sairaj Bahutule made a return, and Yuvraj Singh made the cut.

As is their wont, none of the selectors spoke to the media after making their choices. This left people either tearing their hair out or speculating, depending on the level of foolhardiness of the individual. After all, you might be able to able to unravel the mysteries of the Pharaohs, the complexity of a DNA molecule or understand the meaning of love, but you will never know how the mind of the Indian selector works. Despite history suggesting otherwise, each selection meeting brings hope, almost completely unwarranted, that players will be picked and dropped on merit rather than other considerations.

Having said all that, no one can fault the selection of Akash Chopra. Over the last two seasons, and especially in the last few months, he has shown that he has it in him to be a quality opener in the longer form of the game. He leaves the ball alone as well as anyone in the game, and has a strong temperament built on a solid defensive technique. He will get a chance to prove that he can take a gameplan that is successful in first-class cricket and make it work for him at the highest level. The flip side of Chopra's selection is that Sanjay Bangar has been left out, for no fault of his. After doing precisely the job that was asked of him - seeing off the new ball and wearing out the fast bowlers - he has been axed.

To leave Ramesh out after playing him in a tour match, and watching him score a hundred, is a bit mystifying. Whether he will get a chance at Mohali will determine how much match practice he gets before the Australian tour. Keeping your ears close to the ground, you hear that he has done enough to be one of the prime contenders for the opening slot when India tour Australia. If that is truly the case, it is senseless to deny him vital opportunities to bat at the highest level. If, and that is an equally preposterous supposition, the selectors have decided not to take Ramesh to Australia, then they need not have wasted his time by asking him to turn out for India A. After all, if that century did not convince them, nothing will.

New Zealand, for all the talk about this being a revenge series, are no push-overs. A bunch of combative cricketers under a shrewd captain could well surprise India even in their own backyard. Anything short of a convincing win in the two-Test home series will dent the morale of the side before they leave for Australia. With this in sharp focus, the decision to pick Salvi and Balaji ahead of Agarkar is a grave mistake. There is no doubt that both are fine prospects for the future, but let us first deal with the present. Agarkar, at 25, for all his inconsistency, is well ahead of Balaji and Salvi at the moment. He bowled some decisive spells in the last Ranji season, and looked far superior to Salvi in the Irani Trophy.

Whatever the selectors discussed for almost two hours before they picked this squad, it certainly wasn't cricket.