Over The Top

Chief selector M. S. K. Prasad has said that Mayank Agarwal, this season’s outstanding batsman, is “in the queue” for a place in the India side. Prasad has also spoken to the Karnataka player to give him a “fair picture” of where he stands.

Prasad’s nice words followed by a nice gesture make for a nice procedure that has not always been prevalent in Indian cricket, but could hardly have mollified Agarwal who has scored a whopping 2,141 runs across different formats as yet in an extraordinary streak of form.

This includes five centuries in the Ranji Trophy, three 50- plus scores in the Mushtaq Ali Trophy and three hundreds and four fifties in in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, so Agarwal’s penchant for big scores as well as consistency are clearly established.

The run tally will certainly see an increase when he plays at least two matches in the Deodhar Trophy ( 50 overs) and the Irani Trophy ( four- day, first class) for Rest of India against the Ranji Trophy winners this month.

This is also the period when the India team will be in Sri Lanka for a T20 tri- series and Agarwal would not be human for believing that he had been hard done by: that he deserved to be on the plane to the Emerald Isles next week instead of being left behind.

Abundance of talent has put the national selectors in a piquant situation whenever a cricket team has had to be chosen in recent years. There are several claimants for most positions, and the task of the selectors becomes unenviable.

But that is also what makes the job so much more challenging. It calls into play a deep