Skipper Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and Anil Kumble were the others in the elite group, which has been cut down by two to a group of six.
MUMBAI: A torrid week for a troika of India’s cricketing stars, Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan, Harbhajan Singh was capped off with further ignominy on Saturday, when they were demoted in the players’ contracts by the Indian Cricket Board.
The A-Grade has been pruned from eight to six, a list that now includes new ODI vice-captain MS Dhoni and southpaw Yuvraj Singh, both promoted.
Earlier this week, Sehwag, Pathan and Harbhajan were ignored from the one-day and Test teams, which will tour Ireland and England. The B-Grade tag will reduce their retainership fee from Rs 50 lakh to Rs 35.
Also cut to size was middle-order batsman VVS Laxman, who failed to find a place in the Playing XI during the two-Test series against Bangladesh.
However, it may be noted that the Bangladesh tour, the World Cup and the tour of South Africa counted for nothing when the three-member committee consisting BCCI president Sharad Pawar, secretary Niranjan Shah and chief selector Dilip Vengsarkar sat down to decide who deserved what.
The criterion was a players’ performance in the previous season — from October 1, 2005 to September 30, 2006.
In this context the down-grading of Sehwag who enjoyed decent form during the period taken into consideration, and to a certain extent Pathan and Harbhajan seems a tad unfair as much as the promotion of Yuvraj and Dhoni is well deserved.
Dhoni who has been appointed vice-captain for the Ireland one-dayers scored 985 runs in ODIs, while Yuvraj hit 1,128 in the shorter version of the game. Sehwag does not compare too badly with 908 runs and an average that is in keeping with the opener’s brand of batsmanship.
Sehwag’s knocks in this period include a 180 in the West Indies in Tests and 95 and 97 in the ODIs against Lara’s team. He also hit 254 in Pakistan in early 2006.
Irfan Pathan took 46 wickets in 28 ODI matches and had enough runs to keep his all-round abilities afloat and had the best average among all Indian bowlers. Harbhajan too didn’t fair too badly in ODIs (see table).
Interestingly, former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who didn’t play a single ODI and scored only 155 runs in four Tests, retains his A-grade contract. Last time also, when Ganguly was out of the Indian team, he managed to hold onto his A-grade, courtesy being a former India captain, a well-placed source in the know-how of things had said.
Also a notable absentee among India’s elite players is Mohammad Kaif, a veteran of 125 ODIs, someone who made his Test debut in 2000 and left-arm spinner Murali Karthik. Incidentally, the contracts are for the period from October 1, 2006 to September 30, 2007.
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