Monday, May 24, 2010

Why is Raina being made the captain?

Well it is not a breaking news about Dhoni's praise and confidence he has in the upcoming cricketer Suresh Raina which saw Dhoni allowing Raina to captain the Chennai Superkings side in the IPL a month back. But, one has to imagine whether Dhoni's selection of the captain in his replacement is justified in case Dhoni is responsible in making Raina captain the Indian side for the tri nation tournament involving Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka in Zimbabwe? Or did the selectors show faith in Raina upon Dhoni's choice as mentioned above? In either case, there are better people than Raina who could be given the reins.

One may not agree with me if I say that Suresh Raina still needs to find a platform for himself in the team as a player before he can think of stepping into the shoes of a captain. Not because of his failures in some parts of the team but for the only reason that there are better people and more experienced people than Raina who are eligible to lead the side. Of course, the list does not include Sachin Tendulkar who has shown to be exactly opposite as a captin compared to what he was and what he is as a player.

There are batsmen like Rohith Sharma whose caliber in the Indian team as a batsman is similar to what Raina enjoys. The only difference between the both being that Raina bats left handed while Rohith Sharma bats right handed. Both of them have had equal number of ups and downs in their cricket career. Or else, there are players like Dinesh Karthik who can replace Dhoni as a keeper but would not be a fair choice as a captain instead of Dhoni. And one more fascinating thing about the squad is that the vice captain of India will be Virat Kohli.

There is no doubt that these players have the potential in them both as batsmen and as captain to take the team forward. I thought of mentioning Yuvraj Singh but found that his name misses from the squad set to tour Zimbabwe. My sincere apologies for that. Other choices as captain would be Amit Mishra and Yousuf Pathan both of whom are equally talented and experienced like Suresh Raina. No doubt that not much would be expected from Suresh Raina when his team would return from Zimbabwe. There is no doubt that India will make it to the finals and in case they lose, it would be another loss in a final and nothing more.

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