No question of giving answers!

For the first time ever the Indian cricket team will play six Tests on a tour of one country outside Asia This is because the India v New Zealand World Test Championship final will be followed by the fivematch series with EnglandOn May 7 the BCCI announced a squad of 24 players including four standbys throughyou guessed righta barely adequate press release signed by Jay Shah the Honorary SecretarySo dear cricket lovers on account of the inexplicably cagey attitude of the BCCI you donrsquot get to know what basis the selectors make their key decisions onIn normal times or rather when the BCCI decided to be benevolent there would be a press conference featuring the chief selector and the convenor of the selection committee Sure these are Covid times and the selectors donrsquot meet physically to pick a side but that doesnrsquot mean there canrsquot be virtual media briefings Werenrsquot they organised after every match in the IPL Similarly in this case the chairman of selectorsmdashChetan Sharmamdashshould have been made available to the mediaDoubtless the public would like to know officially why is Hardik Pandya not in the side ditto Kuldeep Yadav whatrsquos wrong with Bhuvneshwar Kumar what is the status of paceman T Natarajanrsquos knee injury sustained during the IPL and why was Prithvi Shaw not given a chance after a decent run in domestic cricket Yes Shaw played two limited overs domestic tournaments Vijay Hazare and IPL14 and not the longer version which the England trip is all about Meanwhile we hear talk about the Mumbai batsman having fitness issues A fair question at the media conference would have been whether the selectors would pick him if not for his questionable fitness levelsChief selectors have never been comfortable answering questions of omissions but most of them had no choice Now of course therersquos not a trace of transparencyNo fault of his if the BCCI doesnrsquot feel the need for the media to interact with him post such a vital selection but the fact is that Sharma has yet to face the mediaThe last chairman to address the media was MSK Prasad when the BCCI was run by the Supreme Courtappointed Committee of Administrators and itrsquos not that Sharma succeeded him There was Sunil Joshi in betweenItrsquos exasperating to think that this is the same establishment which had to be lsquoreformedrsquo via the Lodha Committee recommendations not long ago but the BCCI in many ways has returned to its old ways again And letrsquos not forget a former India captain heads it No team can be declared without his stamp of approval and to think that president Sourav Ganguly sees nothing wrong in merely issuing a press release after a big team selection shows that he is either happy to go with the flow or the realisation of what is right has not yet dawned on himWith so much controversy surrounding the suspension of the IPL another Board would have arranged multiple virtual media conferences with the president along with the IPL chairman by now Talking of the IPL Indiarsquos ability to conduct an incidentfree tournament has been sent for a six and with it comes doubts over it being able to host the World T20 tournament later in the yearThat IPL boss Brijesh Patel told this newspaper hours after the IPL was suspended that there will be a probe into the breaches shows that the systems put in place were not watertight The presuspension departure of Australians like Adam Zampa Kane Richardson Andrew Tye as well as Englishman Liam Livingstone was probably an indication that all wasnrsquot well with the safety aspect of the IPLKolkata Knight Ridersrsquos Australian fast bowler Pat Cummins who donated 50000 towards oxygen supplies all but said that there were holes in the bio bubble He also stressed how IPL13 which was conducted in the United Arab Emirates last year was very well organisedAnd while the BCCI will defend the move to discontinue their association with the International Management Group to handle the tournament they must genuinely ask themselves whether their decision was a right one or were they being penny wise pound foolish What made it an IPL to forget was the lack of sensitivity to what was happening to the country outside the stadium walls The toss ceremony started being embellished with messages to mourn the death of Covid victims but it was clear that the BCCI were late on the shot as it were and beaten for paceBy the way I wonder how many in the establishment read what former IPL boss Lalit Modi told midday two Sundays ago Modi took aim from London pulled the trigger like a seasoned mudstained cowboy and ensured it got lodged in the right place ldquoThere is so much you could have donehellipfinanced the vaccine oxygen respirators Build temporary hospitals use stadiums create that kind of infrastructurerdquoNo matter how cynically people viewed Modirsquos utterances it showed the other side of him and he made sense He was a brash administrator but always mindful of the role media plays in sport His erstwhile organisation bleeds of disrespect to the media The recent selection for the England tour is just one examplemiddayrsquos group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance He tweets ClaytonMurzelloSend your feedback to mailbagmiddaycomThe views expressed in this column are the individualrsquos and donrsquot represent those of the paper