Deserving Players always becomes victim of selection bias...

Once again Indian selectors proved themselves joker in selecting the ODI team for South Africa Tour and World Cup probables. I think these selectors often ignore  deserving players who deserves to be in team on the basis of performances. First of all we look at ODI Squad for South Africa and then we look at 30 World Cup probables.

ODI and T20I Squad for South Africa: Mahendra Singh Dhoni(C / WK), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, S Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar, R Ashwin, Yusuf Pathan.

Selectors dropped M.Vijay, Ravindra Jadeja and Saurabh Tiwary from this team. I must say Ravindra Jadeja and M.Vijay don't deserve place in this team hence their non-inclusion is correct but on what basis selectors dropped Saurabh Tiwary. Tiwary is good hard-hitting batsman with good head on his shoulder and this guy had performed well in whatever limited opportunities he got. Remember his partnership with Yusuf Pathan at Bengaluru in last series against New Zealand. Raina is not in great form and hence we needed cover for him and Tiwary is the best replacement if Raina don't perform well. I really fail to understand why selectors have included 3 spinners for South Afirca tour as India will not going to play with 2 spinners on bouncy tracks so I think selection of Piyush Chawla is also questionable.

30 World Cup Probables:

Mahendra Singh Dhoni(C / WK), Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virat Kohli, Yuvraj Singh, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ashish Nehra, S Sreesanth, Munaf Patel, Ishant Sharma, Vinay Kumar, M Vijay, Rohit Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Ajinkya Rahane, Saurabh Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Parthiv Patel, R Ashwin, Wriddhimaan Saha, Dinesh Karthik, Shikhar Dhawan, Amit Mishra, Piyush Chawla, Cheteshwar Pujara, Pragyan Ojha, Praveen Kumar.

Rahul Dravid who captained India in last World Cup has been axed. Irfan Pathan is also not included in these probables. I think these two decisions are correct too an extent because Irfan is struggling with form and injury and Rahul Dravid is not playing ODI cricket actively but I fail to understand inclusion of Murali Vijay and Cheteswar Pujara. Murali Vijay is complete failure in ODI cricket and Cheteshwar Pujara is Test Match player. I think selectors made a mistake by including these two players. I think Robin Utthappa and Manish Pandey deserves to be in World Cup probables instead of M.Vijay and C.Pujara. I think M.Vijay is getting big favours from selection committee chairman because both hails from same state Tamil Nadu. Robin Utthappa and Manish Pandey are performing very well in domestic cricket. Robin Utthappa is a game changer and Manish Pandey is currently the most talented player according to cricket experts. 

I think selectors have to pick players who are performing well and deserves a place in the team because they are selecting team for the country and not for the state or zone.