Either the selectors are not doing their job properly, or it’s just that they don’t count at all at the Delhi & Districts Cricket Association (DDCA). Continuing with the trend of mysterious and questionable selection procedures, the Delhi under-19 team fielded a player in the XI who wasn’t even part of the original squad.

Delhi team management, “acting under instructions from the DDCA”, drafted in left-arm spinner Darshan Kumar for the first match against Punjab in Patiala on Wednesday, at the expense of Varun Sood, who was originally in the squad and was available for the game. Incidentally, Darshan wasn’t even in the team bus when the under-19 boys traveled to Patiala on October 19, and arrived at the ground on the match day.

Chairman of the Delhi under-19 selection committee Sanjeev Sharma washed his hands of the incident. “Well his name was not there on the team list that we (committee) had picked,” Sharma told Sportline over the phone from Chandigarh. As an afterthought, and trying to defend the DDCA, Sharma did add that coach Mahesh Bhatti and Junior state coach Tarik Sinha could call up players, if needed. “It's not our job to select the playing eleven. It’s in hands of the manger and the coach to call up players, if any emergencies arise. In this case, I think, Varun Sood didn’t take the field, so they played Darshan — it's a like-for-like replacement,” he added. But this ‘like for like replacement’ theory doesn’t hold any water because there are no injury worries to the team and Delhi were playing their first league match since their selection. Adding more intrigue to the arbitrary call-up, Sharma admitted that “Darshan bowled well. He only went for 17 runs in his eight overs”

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