Much like it was the case with Azhar during the final stages of his career (before it was clipped by the match-fixing scandal), Ganguly's batting has been the bone of contention among Indian cricket fans for almost a couple of years now. When he first made it into the team, he was the "God" of the offside and whenever a bowler made the folly of putting the ball on a good/over-pitched length outside the off-stump, you could be guaranteed that Ganguly would collect yet another boundary. However, in the last 2 years or so, the going has become tough for Ganguly with bowlers almost always sticking to a length that is short or just short of a good length against him. To add to his woes, he seemed to have lost that golden touch through the offside even on over-pitched/good length stuff. But, no one could have expected things to have gotten so out of hand for him as it has after his infamous press conference during the Zimbabwe tour. He somehow managed to acquire a timely case of "tennis-elbow" after the BCCI "efficiently" resolved the squabble between him and Chappell, which made it convenient for the selectors to leave him out of the team.
Team India, after its horrid run in ODIs since the 2003 World Cup, surprisingly got its act together right after Ganguly was left out. And so, this clearly made it tough for the selectors to bring him back after he had recovered from his supposed injury. Bongs made such a hue and cry about it that all that they achieved was to bring themselves to shame. Everyone, from the West Bengal CM to the actress Rupa Ganguly (of "Draupadi" fame) got into the act of heralding their golden boy, Sourav Ganguly. Without having access to the local media in Bengal, it's anybody's guess whether this represented the opinion of the majority in Bengal, but considering the booing that reportedly Dravid and even the lord of Indian cricket, Sachin, were subjected to in the Kolkata ODI, that does seem to the case.
The selectors finally wilted under pressure and brought Ganguly back into the Test side. And things would have been fine after a day or two if not for Kiran More's stupid remark that they had included him in the team as a "batting all-rounder", and that too at the expense of Zaheer Khan. Bah! A few wickets in Duleep and Ranji Trophy doesn't maketh an all-rounder. As Harsha Bhogle rightly points out in his latest
column, Ganguly certainly doesn't deserve humiliation in this form of having to make it back into the Indian side as an all-rounder. To make matters worse, Sharad Pawar, the BCCI's new President, when asked about Ganguly's future, had this to say:
He’s one of the best allrounders the country has seen. However, it will be the selectors’ decision (about his inclusion in the team).
Ganguly must be in tears!
This whole episode has actually changed my sentiments towards Ganguly from apathy to sympathy. He has undoubtedly been India's best captain and the second best Indian batsmen in ODIs. His batting skills might have waned, in which case, please just drop him and get done with this. But, please don't term him "one of the best allrounder the country has seen"! Anyway, let us see what he has to offer in the first Test against Sri Lanka. Irrespective of whether he does make it into the playing eleven or not, he will certainly be mocked at either knowingly or unknowingly.
Pity Ganguly!
