Okay, so I maybe wrong here, but this is my assessment of 'Mumbai Lobby' or any 'lobby'.

Mumbai, has traditionally being the power house of Indian cricket (41 Ranji Titles, 14 Irani Trophies, 3 VH Trophies) and has had many greats represent India. Now this creates a perception https://twitter.com/saahilspeaking/status/1342108538433376258

that players from Mumbai are bound to better than ROI because of the sheer achievements that cricketers from Mumbai have in their career. Phrases like 'you may get into the Indian team, but not the Mumbai team', add to that perception. Specially among the casual followers

of the sport. Moreover, there's a very common tendency to trust stalwarts/big names of the game, regardless of how much they are upto date with the current playing conditions. And in today's time, it's very easy to have a voice & be able to put out an opinion. A lot of cricketers

of the past have started doing. Now since Mumbai has more cricketers, it has a larger representation in the public eye as well. Moreover, a lot of former cricketers, don't really follow sport regularly to even know the talents from outside of their state. Someone like M Karthik

didn't even know from where Natarajan was while being from the same state. So ex cricketers voice their opinions in media and speak of the upcoming cricketers who they know about in their vicinity (in this case, the same Ranji side they represented). The biggest example of this

was hardly any ex cricketer speaking about Priyank Panchal or Easwaran when Rohit got picked as an opener. We rarely see an ex cricketer talk of any upcoming cricketer after performances from Ranji, because they themselves don't follow it well enough to suggest names. And thus,

this is how a 'lobby' is formed. Ex cricketers speaking about players from their state only because they don't know about other states. The only challenge to the 'Mumbai Lobby' is the 'Karnataka Lobby' and that's only because Dodda Ganesh is vocal about selections. There soon

could be 'TN Lobby' if Srikkanth or LS speak about selections as well. When the ex cricketers speak about selections, they create pressure on selection committee. Sometimes it's valid, sometimes it isn't. When it isn't valid, and selections are made on that, the term 'lobby' does

the rounds. And it will keep happening as long as India has Zone Wise selectors. Specially those selectors who haven't played the game in the last 20 years. Because a lot of them don't understand the requirements of the modern game. The last line will sound extremely rich coming

from someone like me because I haven't really played at any decent level of cricket. But that is another perennial problem of Indian cricket, which Harsha Bhogle keeps mentioning and says there won't be another Harsha Bhogle.
End Of. Thanks for your patience of reading till here