Karl on ... selection dissonance

The ICC awards for 2005 were presented in Sydney this week. At the awards the ICC announced their world ODI and test teams for 2005. The teams were chosen by a "specially appointed selection panel chaired by Indiand batting legend Sunil Gavaskar".

Understandably, there isn't a match between the current World XI playing the ICC super-series as Australians have been named in the ICC squads. However, what struck me was the appearance of several players in the ICC squads for 2005 who aren't in the world XI, and players whose absence from the World XI was commented on at the time.

The ICC Test XI includes Sri Lankan Chaminda Vaas and Indian Anil Kumble. The ODI XI includes Sri Lankan Marvin Atapattu (named as captain) and Pakistanis Inzamam-ul-Haq and Naved-ul-Hasan. These players weren't named in their respective ICC World team.

Back in May, an initial squad of 39 players were named. All the absent players above were in that 39, except for Atapattu.

What is interesting, is that Gavaskar headed the selection panel for all teams. I struggle to see why the above five were not in the team playing in Australia this week. Surely it can't all come down to one of the selection criteria, experience against the Australians? In hindsight it's easy to say, but in advance I felt that Vaas should have walked into the team.

From a NZ perspective, it was great to see Dan Vettori named in the ICC ODI team for 2005.