A farce called the Challenger

One more edition of the Challenger Trophy has come and gone. And barring the rise of a few and the fall of some established stars, nothing much transpired. The only notable pluses being Laxman's captaincy, Sarandeep's tweaking hot pursuit of Harbhajan and Badani's reinstatement as the future of Indian cricket. Is this what the Challenger was envisaged for? No wonder Sachin decides to keep off.

That brings us to square zero. Why the hell torture the public and the players with some mediocre tournaments? This is a tournament where individual performances, unfortunately, matter more than the team winning. So what shall we do to salvage the name of the man who brought the World Cup to India in 1987?

First, scrap this one. Four days of hectic cricket cannot separate the chaff and the wheat. That's for sure. Mr Ganguly would surely agree. So what shall we do?

Even a cursory glance at the composition of the Indian team for the past four years would tell you that mostly players hail from the same few states. Only of late have Yohannans and Dases come to the limelight. Don't blame the system. Some centers have historically been producing good cricketers and it's only natural that talent keeps flowing. So why not have a one-day tournament featuring the best teams in the country?

My personal choice would be Bombay, Karnataka, Punjab, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Baroda.

These are the teams that have regularly been sending players to don national colours. There have been sides like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Railways, Hyderabad and Orissa who have been churning in stellar displays in the Ranji Trophy. But they would be the first to admit that the story would have been different if Sachin, Saurav and Co. had been regularly available for the domestic league.

Apart from the top seven teams, we could have one team representing the rest of India. This could contain Laxman, Das, Yohannan, Kaif, Ratra and so on. Thus, the selectors too would have a chance to "exercise their rights".Thus we now have eight teams and not a hundred players.It would make a great difference to any player if his captain knows the difference he can make to a game. Example, Murali Kartik and Laxman.

These eight teams could be separated into two groups of almost equal strength. And matches could be played on home and away basis. Then two semi-finals and a final. Thus the youngsters would get to know how fanatic and frightening Indian crowds can be. I, for sure, would like to see the Eden Gardens' crowd baying for Sachin's wicket. Sachin too would relish this challenge.

Commercially (Mr. Dalmiya, are you listening??) this would make sense. For we have 15 good matches coming up. These could be played in the December holiday season or the Mid-January season, when most of India celebrates.

This can also substitute for the festival matches of yore. And if matches are played everyday (even two a day is possible), the whole tourney would be over in three weeks. Are the powers that be, game for some change??

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Mail Anand Chandrashekar