Uneasy questions around the cosy club

Here's a tweet that went viral a couple of days ago: "How you wish your parents had supported you the way the BCCI supports Pujara and Rahane." In sports, just like in life, it is important to back honest people when they're down, professionally and personally.

Tapan Joshi

A good organisation with solid ethos will respect the contributions of its workers and acknowledge the sacrifices they have made along the way. Backing such workers when they have a bad day, or a week, or a month, is the way to show the organisation cares and respects their past record of excellence.

The tricky question is, when is the time to draw the line? When does the bosses solid backing of such individuals start to resemble a cosy club that denies promotion to others waiting in the wings? Is there such a thing called an ideal time to pull the plug - if it's the right phrase here-on an employee who's been underperforming for a while now? The Indian team head coach Rahul Dravid, the selectors and the BCCI will be grappling with these questions over Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane. There's every chance the Test team's Nos. 3 and 5 could still put in a match-winning or match-saving performance in the ongoing Test against South Africa, but the big picture story is that the extra-long rope given to the two struggling batsmen has begun to ruffle a few feathers.

Unprecedented backing