Chairman of selectors MSK Prasad took a pragmatic stance on Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s future with India’s limited overs squad, saying the management will look at alternatives only if the former captain doesn’t deliver.
After explaining Yuvraj Singh’s omission, Prasad was asked about Dhoni and he replied:
“You have been fair and I will be honest. Discussions happen about everybody. It is not just MS. When we pick, when we talk about combinations, we talk about everybody. You will also see in times to come.”
Asked specifically about Dhoni’s future, the chairman said that it’s difficult to predict but till he is delivering for the team, it shouldn’t be a problem.
“You never know. We don’t say it is an automatic thing (selection) but we will see. We are all stakeholders. We all want the Indian team to do well. If he is delivering, why not? If he is not, we will have to look at alternatives,” Prasad said.
He then drew the Andre Agassi analogy about how some players get better with age.
“I was just reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography ‘Open’, his life actually started after 30 years. Till then, he won two or three. His actual life started after that. He lived under the media pressure with the question “When are you going to retire?” But he played till 36 and he won so many Grand Slams.”
Prasad had made no bones about the fact that Indian players need to improve their fitness standards, failing which they won’t be considered for selection. The chief selector laid down the marker for 2019 World Cup, outlining a new selection policy based on fitness.
“If I put my hand on my heart and say after the Champions Trophy, we felt that we need to be a fitter and a stronger side, we felt that we need to raise our fitness levels. We are trying to fix some fitness parameters and whoever it is has to strictly adhere to those parameters,” Prasad said after India completed a series whitewash.
Prasad said the core of the Indian team for the 2019 World Cup will be identified in the next four to five months through a rotation policy.
Pacers Mohammed Shami and Umesh Yadav along with leading spinners Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja were rested for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka and rotation was precisely the reason for the move.
“We have identified some set of players who will be considered for the next 4-5 months and we will rotate them. After those 4-5 months we will come to a picture that these are certain players who will go on to play the 2019 World Cup,” Prasad said.
“We have initiated this process of rotating and resting our main players, so we will see how some of these youngsters do over the next few months or so, and then we will take a call by the end of the year,” said Prasad.