It seems that the stars are not in the favor of Indian Cricket. Whenever there is some major tournament coming up, one of the highest rated members is out of the team on one pretext or the other. In the last IPL cricket tournaments, there were speculations that Sachin is in the next match and then again not in the same match. There was no Sachin physically in almost all of the matches played in the IPL Cricket League. But then he was there officially on the players' list, to boost his fellow players with a hope that he may play the next match!

It has been months after that mega event. This time it is for the Irani Trophy tie to be held at Vadodara later this month. The star cricketer's coach has asked him to retreat on medical grounds. His year long elbow injury is again causing problems. So, once again we will not be able to see the master blaster swinging his bat at the IPCL Stadium from 24th to 28th Sept 2008.

Just to recall, Sachin suffered the elbow injury during the final Test Match against Sri Lanka, held in Colombo last August. He has not played any competitive cricket since then. But the selectors have been including his name in almost every match and later dropping it on the same medical grounds. Is it just because that they fear that people may loose interest in the former Indian cricket Captain, or are they trying to generate controversial marketing for the board?

Whatever be the case, coach Vengasarkar says that Sachin will be replaced by Badrinath. This selection is based on Badrinath's performance in the 'A' series test against Australia at Chennai earlier this month. Please note that these 'A' series is the criteria for selection of the players who will be included in the final team that will play against Australia in the upcoming series.

Another point here is that this Irani series too is a selection criterion for the upcoming Indo-Australian series. So this decision of Vengasarkar to replace Sachin with Badrinath - Does this mean that Sachin is out of the Australian tour too? Of course, the BCCI claims that he will be available for the tour, but we have had many of such promises before too. What guarantee does the BCCI offer?