'The IPL should form the selection basis for the T20 team and at the most the ODI team.'
Former chairman of the selectors M S K Prasad calls on the BCCI to revive India 'A' tours, which he says was integral during his tenure to build a quality bench strength for India as it groomed players like Rishabh Pant, Mayank Agarwal, Sanju Samson and Mohammed Siraj among others.
"For four years I cut off myself from the world including my close friends. My only aim and agenda was Indian cricket," Prasad tells Rediff.com's Harish Kotian in the final part of a two-part exclusive interview.
- Part 1 of the Interview: 'Only agenda should be Indian cricket'
The selectors always stay behind the scenes, but they cop a fair share of criticism whenever the team doesn't do well. How did you handle criticism?
During my tenure, we had 80 percent success rate. We won the bilateral series in all the SENA countries (South Africa, England, New Zealand, Australia).
The only thing is, we reached the Champions Trophy final (in 2017) and unfortunately we lost in the semi-finals of the 2019 World Cup.
Overall, if you see there was a high success rate, but we were criticised for being a lightweight committee.
We went ahead with it because when you when you are sitting in a chair, you have that pride of sitting in the chair and at the same time, you should be ready to accept that criticism will be a part of your chair. It is like two sides of the coin.
Did you ever during your time get any calls from the player or someone else to push the case for a player or someone trying to threaten you?
For four years I cut off myself from the world including my close friends. My only aim and agenda was Indian cricket. I never picked calls from any unknown number.
This is how I was trained by Sandeep Patil. A lot of credit should go to Sandeep, he is one guy who remained unbiased and he trained us in such a manner that we have taken it to the next level.
Me and my whole committee including Devang Gandhi, Sarandeep Singh, Jatin Paranjpe and Gagan Khoda, all of us remained unbiased.
We travelled close to almost 180 to 200 days in a year and that's the reason why we created so much of bench strength like Mohammed Siraj, Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw, Mayank Agarwal, K S Bharat, Hanuma Vihari, Navdeep Saini... all these players were part of the India 'A' teams which frequently travelled during those times.
What was Sandeep Patil's advice when you took over the role from him in 2016?
Sandeep told us two-three things, one of which was to be unbiased.
He told us that we should have a clear vision and that we should not discuss about the team selections anywhere, including our family, and that's exactly what we followed for four years.
The India 'A' tours have proved to be an important platform for the players to push their case to the selectors but we haven't seen many India 'A' series in recent years.
I think the BCCI should seriously think about reviving this India 'A' structure because there is a huge difference between Indian domestic cricket and international cricket.
I will give you a small example. Mayank Agarwal got more than 1,000 runs before playing his first Test match.
And in his first Test match, he goes and smashes Australia's bowlers and gets a half-century in his very first innings in Australia or Prithvi Shaw getting a century in his first Test match or Rishabh Pant getting a century in his second Test match.
You also had Ishan Kishan, Sanju Samson, all these people were groomed through India 'A' cricket so India 'A' cricket is the most important factor.
Once again I reiterate that there is a difference between Indian domestic cricket and also international cricket and the only thing that can bridge these gap is India 'A' cricket.
The one criticism selectors face is that IPL performances carry a lot of weightage as compared to domestic tournaments like the Ranji Trophy?
See you cannot deny the fact that the IPL is like a prestigious event. It is like sort of a mini World Cup happening every year.
You have the best players from around the world playing with and against each other so any good performance in the IPL will definitely get international recognition.
But having said that the IPL should form the selection basis for the T20 team and at the most the ODI team.
So the players once they get selected for T20 and ODI cricket if they prove themselves they can even go up the ladder and get into the Test team.
But IPL performances should primarily be recognised for white ball cricket.
