India, May 29 -- Each leadership group has its own style of player selection. When I say leadership group I mean the captain of the Indian team, the coach and the chairman of selectors. In the time when Virat Kohli and Ravi Shastri were captain and coach, the squad had the look of what the selection committee wanted, but the playing XI was completely the domain of Virat and Shastri. Shastri being an extremely compliant coach to the captain the playing XI was basically Virat's. This management picked the most unpredictable playing XI I have seen. Under Rahul Dravid, Rohit Sharma, and Ajit Agarkar as chairman of selectors, the controllables were handled the best I thought. The only big blunder this team leadership may have made was the surface they chose to play Australia in the 2023 World Cup final. In the current leadership of Agarkar and Gautam Gambhir with a new captain obviously having the least say, I am seeing a style of selection which is quite interesting and slightly disturbing. Under Gambhir's stewardship and with Rohit not there anymore, I see a tendency in this management to pre-empt performances of individuals while making selections. As in, the dominating thought here is to apply their own view of the likely success and failure of players depending on conditions and opposition. Take the example of Sarfraz Khan. Three fifties and a 150 at home in four Tests and failures in only four innings after that and Sarfaraz does not get a single game in Australia. For the England tour too, he has been left out despite his performances in recent times outweighing Karun Nair's completely. So, this non-selection is not about performance, it's about someone important in the leadership group thinking Sarfaraz will not get runs in England and Australia, and Karun Nair will. This may well turn out to be true but it's a real shot in the dark, isn't it? Over the years this game has surprised us umpteen times when players have over performed when we haven't expected much from them. Nitish Kumar Reddy in Australia, for example. Sometimes ignoring performances and looking at only natural ability and their chances of success in certain conditions is not a bad thing, but this game will prove you are wrong more often. So, to stick to simple logic of rewarding performance and staying the course is the wise thing to do, like the earlier management under Rohit and Dravid did. Also, the critical thing with trying to predict returns on players is who is doing this 'guess work'. Famously, Imran Khan in the 90s got it right more often but most others have failed at hitting the jackpot. Sourav Ganguly was the best amongst Indians. Having an eye for talent and on top of that gauging if that talent will be effective in certain conditions is a rare gift. Does Agarkar have it, or does Gambhir? For Indian cricket's sake let's hope they do, but rarity essentially means it's not commonplace. The selector has in fact placed a huge bet on Gill the captain. Can't help but feel Gambhir would not have objected to this, rather have a young, rookie captain than a senior great (BUMRAH) to deal with as captain, especially after Rohit. Harshit Rana was picked on perception in the Border Gavaskar Trophy ahead of the incumbent Akash Deep and proved in his debut Test he indeed was a better alternative. But suddenly the perception has changed now and Akash Deep seems to be the favoured bowler in overseas conditions. When punting on talent the next absolute imperative is to stick with the talent, but with this management this does not seem to be the case. Luckily for these 'speculators', it's a tour where India have nothing to lose. It's a team in serious transition, so hype aside, we must keep our expectations on the very low side and a more mature, predictable selection would not mean a possible 4-0 win for India. It's a dangerous trend nevertheless, fallout being players becoming insecure and then disgruntled, a completely avoidable situation....