Indian Team for Australia Test Series - My View

The team that has been selected MS Dhoni (capt), Virat Kohli, Shikhar Dhawan, M Vijay, KL Rahul, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, Wriddhiman Saha, Naman Ojha*, R Ashwin, Karn Sharma, Ravindra Jadeja, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Umesh Yadav, Varun Aaron

*Ojha has been included only for the first Test.

Up front - 18 members for a 4 test series is utter stupidity. Not sure why we need that many in the team. 

Openers - We have Shikhar, Vijay and Rahul in the team as openers. Vijay and Shikhar should be opening in Brisbane and Adelaide (also probably Melbourne). Don't expect Rahul to get a chance unless they fail big time in the first 2 (or 3 tests) or one of them gets injured. He is more going for the experience than anything else. Rahul is selected because of the wonderful season he had last year in the domestic series(scored over 1000 runs with 3 centuries) and the 2 centuries he scored in Duleep trophy final. 

Middle Order - Pujara, Virat, Jinx and Rohit have been settled middle order for a while now. Rohit is coming out of the injury and unless he scores big in the 2 one days against SL might sit out. Raina who seems to have the backing of the current big man (Ravi Shastri) might get a chance again in the whites. 

Fast Bowlers - Bhuvi, Shami, Ishant, Umesh, Varun. We will be playing Umesh, Bhuvi and Ishant in the first 2 tests. Varun limped out of the first ODI against SL. Shami is not also playing the SL series due to injury. Ishant is also down with a stiff back. Bhuvi is on his well-earned rest and hopefully he comes charged. Bhuvi was in the last few matches being very flat. He has to get back his swing. Varun might get one match, don't think Shami will be lucky. Out of the 5 selected 3 are down with injuries - that shows how vacant our bench strength is when it comes to fast bowlers. 

Spinners - Why do we need 3? We should play 1 or max 2 (at SCG). Dhoni is known to be soft on Jadeja and that might make us play 2 spinners which is not ideal. Ashwin did a good job in the 2 tests that he played in England and seem to have learnt lessons from his earlier trip down under and should be our first choice. I would have preferred if Kuldeep was selected over Karn. Now that we have Karn in the mix, he should get a chance in Sydney as the second choice. Jadeja is ok for ODIs but it is high time we stop picking him up for tests. Someone should put their foot down when MSD asks for his inclusion. 

Wicket Keepers - Saha has established himself as the second choice and Ojha is selected as backup only for the first test where MSD is not available. 

We should have selected a 16 member team - Shami and Jadeja are over kill. 

I feel that in certain cases the selectors go primarily by the IPL (Karn) and the recent effect (Rahul). Hopefully they do well if they get chances. Gone are the days when unless a player wont be picked unless he performs consistently in 3 or 4 series. 

PS - On the ODI front - Happy that Uthappa is back in the mix and he being picked as the keeper might give him a chance to go to Australia for the world cup. 

Modi's Cabinet Expansion - My View

First and foremost, really happy that the Prime Minister has realized that minimum government does not mean having minimum number of ministers. Not sure if he realizes that it means minimum number of ministries. 

Also good that some of the ministers are divested multiple portfolios so they can concentrate on key work - Like Arun Jaitley moving out of Defense, Nitin Gadkari moving out of Rural development and Nirmala Seetaraman moving out of Finance and Corporate affairs. I don't think any of these are punishments. Arun Jaitley getting I&B is funny though. 

Suresh Prabhu and Manohar Parrikar joining the cabinet, clearly shows the dearth of talent in the 325(282 in LS and 43 in RS) BJP MP pool. Which really is a sad state of affairs. 

Manohar Parrikar - Has built a image of a clean no-nonsense administrator. He gets an important Defense portfolio. There is lots of defense procurement that is planned and his clean image and good administration capabilities will come to use (hopefully this will be a welcome change over the "very clean to the extent of not doing anything style" of Antony). 

Suresh Prabhu - He was well respected and was thought to be a no-brainer in the initial cabinet itself. However, he has not been in good books of Udhav which let to him not being part of the original cabinet. He gets the railways ministry which was going nowhere under Sadanand Gowda. 

Birendar Singh - More to appease the Jat community of Haryana where BJP has positioned the first non-jat CM. 

JP Nadda - Rewarded for his work in UP where BJP did exceptionally well to win 73 seats. Even though it is open secret that he pressurized Harsh Vardan to get rid of AIIMS Vigilance officer. This also shows the audacity of the government in having scant regard for all such things with Nadda now becoming the Health minister in charge of AIIMS also (he can get rid of anyone he wants now - doesn't have to pressurize anyone else). 

Bandaru Dattatreya -  He becomes the first Union minister from the new state of Telengana. He was also a minister in the earlier NDA governments. This is more for coverage than anything else. 

Giriraj Singh - He is the guy who asked everyone opposing Modi to go to Pakistan. He was also recently in controversy over the 1 crore rupees found in his residence. He is selected along with Ram Kripal Yadav from Bihar for getting the Bhumihar and Yadav votes from which they both come from respectively. Bihar goes to elections next year. 

UP also get 4 new ministers which shows the focus that BJP has in another state which goes to election next year. 

Vijay Sampla - The plumber turned minister. He is brought in to garner the dalit votes in Punjab. It also clearly sends a message to Akalis (who didn't get any additional ministers) that BJP is moving into consolidate its position in Punjab. 

Same is the case with Babul Supriyo - BJP wants to establish themselves in West Bengal. With TMC on the decline and Congress not seizing the opportunity there is lots of space for them. 

Naqvi - Joins as MOS of minority affairs. Understand that BJP wanted to improve their Muslim representation but he could have been given another ministry - what with both muslim ministers in the cabinet being in charge of minority affairs. 

Ravi Shankar Prasad, Harsh Vardan, VK Singh and  Sadanand Gowda all have their wings clipped. Unless they get their act together won't be surprised if they are dropped completely. Harsh Vardan alone could be a case of prepping him for Delhi elections but others are clear cases of being warned. 

Ravi Shankar Prasad lost Law and Justice - that should really hurt. This guy who shows up in all TV programs with a book shelf filled with law books should feel really bad about losing the law ministry. Sadanand Gowda - his time in the ministry looked numbered. Not sure if he can be any successful in this ministry. This should be a huge set back for him dropping from Railways to Law. 

VK Singh - He has been removed from the NE affairs ministry and given statistics. Saw a funny tweet that this was more to finalize his date of birth :)

Shiv Sena - They must be fuming - Their request for minister posts in Maharashtra is not considered at all, their requests for having the new minister Anil Desai as a cabinet post rather than MOS is not considered. On top of it they had Suresh Prabhu join BJP just before the swearing in after resigning from Shiv Sena. This clearly shows where they stand in the current scheme of things. It is high time they reconcile to that fact and see how to survive and re-establish themselves (if at all they want to). 

The next post will be on my take on what can really be done to achieve minimum government.