‘The succeeding selection panel went backwards’

A successful India wicketkeeper, secretary of his home association (Baroda), selection committee chairman at a tumultuous time in Indian cricket, and finally being dubbed a rebel for joining the ICL -Kiran More has seen many shades of life. In a chat with HT on Friday, More spoke about a few issues. Excerpts...

A successful India wicketkeeper, secretary of his home association (Baroda), selection committee chairman at a tumultuous time in Indian cricket, and finally being dubbed a rebel for joining the ICL -Kiran More has seen many shades of life. In a chat with HT on Friday, More spoke about a few issues. Excerpts

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What was the idea when the selection committee under your chairmanship took a few bold steps?
We had a vision to make a new Indian team and create bench strength. We were not taking it series by series or going by results in one or two matches. The result wasn't bad either, we won 17-odd ODIs in a row.

Do you think you succeeded?
If you look at the core the team has now, I think we were accurate in our assessment of most of the players.

Sacking Sourav Ganguly as captain and then dropping him caused a hue and cry. How do you look back?
Sourav's time as captain was over…the pressure on him was mounting and the runs had dried up too. We were looking at a leader for the future. But never did we write him off as a batsman and he scored a lot of runs after coming back.

Was there a gap of ideas between your selection committee and the next one?
There obviously was. The committee after us took a few backward steps and the 2007 World Cup disaster showed who was right and who wasn’t. The principle we were trying to follow was not adhered to. I don't blame anyone. There should have been an exchange of ideas between the outgoing committee and the new one. Had that been the case, we would have got a chance to explain to them what our plans were. That chance never came.