Indian Cricketers And the Truth Behind Their Poor Show on England Tour

Two back-to-back defeats and the Indian dominance of Test cricket is already being questioned. The fact that the downfall of short lived Indian supremacy of Test cricket is being discussed more than the resurgence of the English Test side even by the English is testimony of just how big this fall is. While form and commitment along with an over burdened schedule are being cited as the biggest reasons for our pathetic display in England, is there more to what meets the eye?
Recent newspaper reports have been vindicating what everyone's been suspecting for the longest period. Most of the players in this Indian XI have been carrying niggling injuries which seem to have manifested at a time when India needed its team to fire the most. If that be the case then could it be true that some of the most celebrated players in this world number one Test side are hiding the truth?
What would you call professional sportsmen who chose to hide the truth about their fitness levels? Zaheer Khan was to spearhead our pace battery but it took less than 20 overs from the pacer to bring the truth out in the open. Experts have suggested that the fast bowler opted to keep mum about his fitness even though reports from the Bangalore's National Cricket Academy suggested that he wasn't 100% fit for the English tour. In the last one year he has played 7 Tests and 16 ODIs but has opted out of tours on account of injuries of the shoulder, groin, hamstring, ankle and then hamstring again.
There were murmurs that even Harbhajan Singh decided to announce his availability irrespective of the fact that he wasn't fully fit; he isn't match fit on account of an abdominal muscle tear. Maybe they aren't lying. Maybe they're simply not telling the truth. And maybe their version of the truth vastly differs from a physio's report.
Often considered to be the god of cricket Sachin Tendulkar is the only player in the team who decides to choose the matches he wants to play. He is rested for every alternate series and yet plays the full IPL season.
As for Virender Sehwag he simply carried on playing IPL this year even though his shoulder was injured during the final stages of the World Cup.
Gautam Gambhir too aggravated his injury, the extent of which wasn't disclosed, by playing a crucial IPL fixture and had to sit out for the West Indies tour.
So, why are some players more equal than the others?
It's strange that rather than setting things right everyone from the players to administrators simply carry on with the charade and the lies.
Perhaps Mohinder Amarnath was right in calling the national selectors a bunch of jokers way back in the late 1980's for how else can one describe five fools who are now relying upon a 38-year-old legend called Rahul Dravid to save the number 1 in ODIs!
Well, let's just say that this time around they didn't ignore the fittest and currently the best player in Indian cricket!

I am a Delhi-based author who writes for Buzzintown.com.