Picking and Choosing

Given the sheer volume of ODI cricket these days, picking and choosing matches to skip is also a task that requries skills of great art and science. While the dead rubbers are the obvious candidates for the top players, they do not really come along that frequently. Often, the losing team wants to play its best even in dead rubbers to gain more respectability and in cases of triangular series even matches that have no influence on deciding the finalists are considered important so as to not let the other team seize the momentum and the advantage before the final.

What then is the best way ? Teams have been following rotation policies off and on. The 2001 Aussies did so famously but evidently players like McGrath didn't like it. Even today India while playing with the same set of 12 players is vigorously rotating their roles in the lineup.

The other day I thought that Ricky Ponting has had a fairly long and very successful run with Australia and in recent times been very much injury-free. I figured he would have played so many consecutive matches that his name would surely figure somewhere at the top of the list of players playing most consecutive matches. Imagine my shock then when I saw that he figures nowhere on the list. In fact he has never played 50 matches in a row. Sachin Tendulkar tops the list with 185, Andy Flower is up there - a lot of players are up there including some Kenyans but no Ponting.

This clearly indicated to me that he had picked and chosen the matches he missed with great care. I really do think there needs to be a well-laid customized plan for every player that ensures his optimum utilization while never letting the team suffer. Your thoughts ?