Dhoni reportedly overruled

WHENEVER MS Dhoni speaks, the BCCI and Indian cricket community listen and obey.

However a report from Indian media indicates that Dhoni’s power and influence in the cricket-mad country could be on the decline.

Dhoni was reportedly overruled — a very rare occurrence — on a few selection calls while India picked its 15-man squad for the World Cup, which was recently named by a five-man selection committee.

Dhoni is still India’s ODI and T20 captain despite retiring as Test skipper immediately following the Boxing Day Test and was part of the selection committee to pick India’s squad for cricket’s biggest tournament.

“The point of disagreement was around two spots, sources said,”reported a leading daily from India. “Dhoni had pushed for Murali Vijay as an additional opener and either Mohit Sharma or Varun Aaron as the fifth seamer. Incidentally, both Vijay, who has been in great form in Australia through the Test series, and Mohit are Dhoni’s teammates in Chennai Super Kings in IPL. Varun, who also is part of the Test squad in Australia, is from the skipper’s home state, Jharkhand.

Hours after Indian selectors announced their 15-member squad for the upcoming World Cup, Yograj Singh – father of discarded Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh said that BCCI shouldn’t be condemned for not considering the veteran batsman for the prestigious tournament.

Reacting to Yuvraj’s exclusion, Yograj said that it wasn’t the end of road for the 33-year-old and was hopeful of his participation in the 2019 World Cup.Stuart Binny, Ravindra Jadeja and Akshar Patel were preferred ahead of the senior left-hander.

From lamenting how badly he will be missed at the 2015 World Cup to declaring that his career is already over, followers of discarded cricketer Yuvraj Singh showed a variety of emotions as they took to Twitter following the batsman’s exclusion from the 15-man Indian squad for the quadrennial event announced Tuesday.

A disappointed fan, whose twitter handle read @abhijitmajumder, posted “Yuvraj Singh’s career is officially over. Dream while it lasted. Strongly feel Indian team will miss his spunk, experience in #WC2015. #Yuvi”.

Rohit Srivastava, an ardent fan of the southpaw, could not understand why the prolific left-hander was left out, even though Ravindra Jadeja, who was reportedly injured, got the green signal.

“@YUVSTRONG12 Hard for me to understand, but good luck for future. #WC2015 #IndiaTeam” tweeted Srivastava.

Ashish Naik, another devoted follower of Yuvraj, posted that India had already lost the World Cup by dropping the talismanic all-rounder.

“No Yuvraj Singh in World Cup squad#wc2015 already lost. Poorest team and bowling attack. Most players failed in Aus,” he posted.

When asked about Yuvraj’s omission, Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Sanjay Patel said his name emerged in the discussions but he wasn’t considered worthy of selection.

Yuvraj was not among the 30 probables for the World Cup.

“Not only Yuvraj Singh, a lot of other players were also discussed apart from the 30, and after a lot of deliberation (the team was finalised) in the presence of all the five selectors as well as captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni and coach Duncan Fletcher, who were there on conference call.”

Yuvraj has scored 8,329 runs in 293 One Day Internationals and pocketed 111 wickets. He was the man-of-the-tournament in India’s triumphant run at home in the 2011 edition of the mega event.