Gambhir’s concussion was a serious enough injury and it should be the board’s prerogative to decide on who should be allowed to play in the domestic tournament and who should not be allowed to play – given that the players have signed the contract with the board.

Thus, it means that even if Gambhir is less than fully fit, and he decides to play on, the BCCI will not interfere in the matter and it will mean that the side will be looking to get him on board. What happens if then, the player gets injured again and misses the series against England and even the West Indies?

Doesn’t the board have any affinity towards international cricket? Doesn’t it have any kind of duties to protect its own players? Sad state of affairs this is.

So, instead of taking rest at home and trying to get the spin right for the rest of the series in the year including the ones against England at home and the one against West Indies and later against Australia, he has decided to go ahead with the Mumbai Indian games for the CLT20 games.

The time has come where the board takes a strong stance, that is, if the player has missed a series before the CLT20 or the IPL because of an injury, he needs to give the lucrative tournament a miss as well, and rest enough to get the bearings right for the international series.

However, the problem is that the BCCI will never be doing such a thing to annoy the money churning franchises. Because it is not the international results but the money that BCCI only worries about!

Trescothick’s issue is that he does not travel outside of his home and has, one expected lines, withdrawn from the tournament. On the other hand, Kieswetter and Buttler have not been named for the tournament by Somerset because they would be selected by the national side and that would mean that the Somerset team will be without some of the best players they had used to qualify for the tournament.

The other issue is that of Pollard, who will be plying his trade for the Mumbai Indians, leaving the Somerset side without too much traction.

Instead, the side will have the services of Alex Barrow, a 19-year-old, as a wicket-keeper, whose experience of playing in India hasn’t been the greatest.

Somerset squad: Alex Barrow, Jos Buttler, Nick Compton, Adam Dibble, George Dockrell, James Hildreth, Gemaal Hussain Murali Kartik, Steven Kirby, Craig Kieswetter, Craig Meschede, Arul Suppiah, Alfonso Thomas, Peter Trego, Roelof van der Merwe.

These nine are; New South Wales, South Australia, Leicestershire, Somerset, Cobras, Warriors, Auckland, Ruhuna and Trinidad and Tobago.

To me, New South Wales would be the one team worth looking at, simply because not only have they won the first Champions League in 2009, it was also played in India, where their bowlers were able to get the ball to keep low and make things difficult for the opposition.

While the captain hasn’t been decided yet, there is a good chance that Simon Katich could lead the side and given all that he has gone through with the selectors in the last couple of months, it may result in him going in full tilt.

Who are your favourites?

For starters, there is a foot issue with their captain Sachin Tendulkar and if he is declared unfit for the rest of the series against England, it will be interesting to see if he will be fit enough to play in the Champions League T20.

The one player who should definitely be out of reckoning is Rohit Sharma, who suffered from a broken bone in his hand. This meant that he will be out of competitive cricket for around a month and it will not make sense for him to risk playing.

Then, there is Harbhajan Singh who flew back from England to rest his stomach muscle which could be tested in the CLT20 if he opts to play for it.

If all three do not play in the tournament, not only will the side be without three of the better players they have, the Mumbai Indians will miss having a proper captain as well for the Champions League T20. They would be out of reckoning then, to win the Champions League T20.

However, given that the tournament begins from September 19, he will need to report to the camp by around September 15, which is around two weeks away. The big question is whether he will get fit enough by that time or whether he will risk aggravating an injury to himself.

Even in the IPL, Gambhir had played for the Knight Riders despite suffering from a shoulder injury and that had meant that he had had to miss the tour of the West Indies. Gambhir would know that if he were to repeat the same mistake again, there would be a huge backlash against him, and things could get interesting.

What do you think? Should Gambhir play in the CLT20?

Check out the CLT20 2011 Schedule

India will be represented by Chennai Super Kings, Mumbai Indians, Royal Challengers Bangalore, Australia will have New South Wales and South Australia while South African teams of Warriors and Cobras will make it to the main draw.

The six teams playing in the qualifiers are Kolkata Knight Riders, Somerset, Leicestershire, Trinidad and Tobago, Ruhuna and Auckland. The qualifiers will be played on September 19, 20 and 21 while the main tournament will be held between September 23 and October 9.

The qualifiers will be held at the Uppal stadium in Hyderabad, while Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata will host the main matches, something that is surprising given that it is Mumbai Indians who have qualified for the tournament and are still not hosting a single game.

It had happened on the tour of Australia in the Sydney Test when one decision after another went against the Indian team and they could only helplessly look on.

There was a stumping decision that went against India, and there was a caught behind that also went against India before Ganguly was given out caught off one bounce.

So, I don’t understand what was MS Dhoni expecting to gain out of the decision to recall Ian Bell. If winning a sportsmanship award was the issue, he can easily do that in the IPL’s Fairplay award but with a number one ranking at stake, it was something that he should have kept in mind.
Besides, Bell was clearly out and it should have remained that way.

India were under-prepared for the game and they always knew they would be under-prepared. Unfortunately, the feeling I got was that the Indian team was not bothered about the fact that they were going to remain under-prepared without the warm-up needed.

If I were an Indian team captain I would do my level best to get the board to organise at least two warm-up games before the start of the series. Probably even three.

However, it has clearly been the case of arrogance getting the better of the Indian side, resulting in the one-sided defeat at the hands of the far superior English team.

The question now is, whether India deserves the number one rankings in the Tests?

It is easy to say that every player must be allowed to earn his living but that also means that the franchises must be protected and so too must the players. The franchises don’t want to get into a situation where they don’t have control over the players and that the player is able to hold them to ransom.

Similarly, while money is good for the game, too much money may spoil the cricketers – especially if they don’t really deserve it. For someone who is 17 and has not played a single season of Ranji, signing up for Rs.50,00,000 could end up spoiling him – at that age, the mind is gullible and could believe that it is the end of the world for them.

So, well done BCCI – for whatever reasons.