Cover Points : Saurav Ganguly

Dadaist escapes

dcsiva — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:03:00 GMT

Ganguly's out. First, a collection of links and a tribute to Ganguly from Soulberry:

Against the very team which defined and underlined your captaincy and strong character, may you score all the runs you wish to and for us to cherish. May you, against the very team you taught the world to look upon as nothing more than equals, eye to eye, end your career in brilliant glory.

Some additional links: Samir Chopra on what Ganguly meant as captain of India; and Straight Point on his significance to Bengali cricket.

Ricky Ponting has helpfully (correctly, in my opinion) pointed out that a prolonged farewell will be distracting to his teammates:

"It (Ganguly's retirement) will certainly create distractions. And we have experienced it when Steve Waugh, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Adam Gilchrist retired," Ponting said ahead of the first Test in Bangalore on Thursday.

"The decision takes pressure off Sourav but puts pressure on some other and the Indian players will certainly be facing that for the next four weeks. I'm sure the crowd in India will be eager to come out and see Sourav play his last Tests. And that will add to the overall spectacle of the series," said Ponting.

Here's Kartikeya's take on Ganguly and distraction:

The announcement of his departure has been characteristically ham handed. There was no reason to announce this right now. It seems to have come about as an afterthought, what with the "One last thing lads" preamble. It was an important announcement. Ganguly has had an fine career and the announcement should have been made properly and formally, not as a "oh and by the way" appendage. From the point of view of the India - Australia series, it could not have come at the worse time, two days before the series begins, virtually tying the selectors hands for the rest of the series.

The proper way for Ganguly to have announced his retirement, one worthy of a player of his stature, would have been to announce it on the eve of the Nagpur Test match, with the Chairman of Selectors by his side in a full fledged press conference. That would have been the serious, well thought out way of doing it. Ganguly leaves himself open to criticism that he made this adhoc announcement to avoid being dropped in case he doesn't perform in the first two Tests.

Meanwhile, here's Q's preview of the 20-20 final between the Karachi Dolphins and the Sialkot Stallions. And Ottayan on the on-again off-again Stanford millionaires game.

Testing selections

dcsiva — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:49:00 GMT

Kartikeya argues, reasonably enough in my opinion, that the Indian squad for the first two Tests is a very conservative selection:

India have announced their squad for the first two Tests against Australia. There are no real surprises, something which has become a feature of Indian selections in recent. The only mild surprises are that Sourav Ganguly has not been dropped from the Test team, and possibly also that RP Singh also remains in the squad. Munaf Patel's inclusion may indicate that RP is now the fourth choice fast man for India.

Dileep Premachandran says that Ganguly has become the selectors' beach ball. Soulberry welcomes Amit Mishra into the squad:

That man can turn a game on its head wih his ripping leg-spinners. It does look like the shani hovering on his head has evaporated with the change in selection commitee. It is now up to Misraji to make the most of the opportunity as and when it comes. He may not play immediately but who knows. For the record, TCWJ has been calling for Misraji's inclusion in a sustained, apolitical, merit-promoting manner. Naturally, we're happy here :)

And then looks back at Ishant Sharma's role in the last tour to Australia (there's a video clip, too):

Can Ishant Sharma repeat the influence he had over the Australian batsmen a year ago? The teenaged Indian beanpole, who had the tough-as-nails Australian captain and all-time great batsman, Ricky Ponting, hopping unexpectedly - like Mendis did unto the Indian Fab-ric recently?

Finally, Will says provides, as evidence for Indian fanaticism, journalists' coverage of an Indian training session.

Dandling Ganguly

dcsiva — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:02:00 GMT

Looks like the new broom will be sweeping out the Fab Four some time soon. Straight Point doesn't think much of Srikkanth's apparent plan to make the retirement process public:

i don't have problem with...that knowing their future plans they will groom certain set of players which they deem fit as their reasonable replacements...

i don't even have any problem with management planning their farewell...befitting their stature and the services they rendered...and i sincerely believe...without an iota of doubt that......if we are treated as some force in world stage...most of that credit should go to them...

but what you get in return...this media trial?

Who is the most under pressure. The Press Trust of India reporter thinks Ganguly might be the first to go:

Will Srikkanth and co-selectors Yashpal Sharma, Narendra Hirwani, Surendra Bhave and Raja Venkat pull the rug on the career of Ganguly is the big question ahead of one of the most interesting selection panel meetings.
The 36-year-old Bengal stalwart, who staged a spectacular entry into Tests with a debut ton at Lord's in 1996, made a storming return to the five-day game in South Africa [Images] in late 2006 after losing his place earlier that year.
The classy left-hander amassed over 1100 runs with 239, his career-best score, against Pakistan in Bangalore in late 2007, at a fantastic average of 61.44 last year which compares very favourably with his career average of 41.74 in 109 Tests.
He has been unable to maintain that high in the current year though he has come up with important knocks like the 87 he made against the visiting South Africans at Kanpur that helped India level the three-Test rubber in April.
This, however, was followed by the left hander's poor run in Sri Lanka where his best score was 35 in six innings.

And Dileep Premachandran puts in a strong defense of Laxman:

Ganguly's time already appears to have run out, and it will be interesting to see if either Rahul Dravid or Sachin Tendulkar stay on past the tour of New Zealand next April. Laxman isn't even 34 yet, and calls for his head are utter nonsense. Against his favourite opponents, he may just prove why.

Here's an old post of mine defending the Fab Four as a whole. Finally, in some good news for Ganguly, a new type of reverse swing specifically for medium pace bowlers!

Fab Four not over yet

dcsiva — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 17:04:00 GMT

Straight Point recently wrote about the Fab Four for those who might be sleeping. And there has been a chorus of disapproval of their recent lack of runs.

I too am wary of statistics. What is the value of a statistical analysis? Or, even simpler, just the numbers themselves as a record of achievement? I simply don't know.

When the IPL started there was a lot of discussion about the value of numbers in evaluating performance. See the following old post by David Barry for an account of sabermetrics and cricket. Barry's excellent most recent post looks at bowlers' performance over time, asking if they get better with experience.

If a rolling five match Test bowling average is good enough for him, it's good enough for me. Here, more precisely, are graphs of each of the Fab Four's rolling 10 innings Test averages (edit: click on the images to see the full graph):

I defy anyone to pick out any kind of meaningful pattern here. For example, one might be tempted to say: "Look at Dravid's numbers over the last year...they're consistently hopeless...he ought to be dropped immediately." Well then just glance at Tendulkar's graph instead and note the low 10 innings average in 2006. Would dropping him then have been a sensible thing to do? Second guessing your way through all of this noise is a bad idea.

Here's the average of the rolling 10 innings average of the Fab Four (gulp!):

There have been very very few times that the average of the each of the Fab Four's rolling ten innings average has dipped well below 40. The last time in fact was at the tail end of 2000. That is, just after India doing very badly in Australia, before some easy Tests against Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and then the epic battle with Australia in that series.

If there's any value at all in looking at past performances, these graphs suggest that there is no long term decline in Fab Four efforts. Let them figure out when to retire by themselves. Or am I not awake yet?

Losing the Fab Four

dcsiva — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 10:32:00 GMT

As Kevin Pietersen is setting up England for a consoling win against South Africa, both because of his century and the players' responses to him being made captain, Sangakkara is pulling Lanka back into the game against India.

But the really big news has to do with the Famous Fab Four. Start here with Straight Point, then have a look at VM's response on Dhoni getting the Khel Ratna, before shifting to back to Straight Point on "Vir-Gati". And, finally, onto to Ottayan on strategies for getting rid of the Fab Four.

I think the way forward is clear with everyone except Tendulkar. And even he has started losing sponsorships. The end is near for the Indian middle-order of the last decade and more. But we'll be clamouring for the good old days soon enough.

Warne-ing Ganguly

dcsiva — Fri, 02 May 2008 17:03:00 GMT

Another controversy hits the IPL. Having one per week seems about right, although from the way the little punishments are being handed out it seems that the powers in charge aren't in control of the process yet! One big surprise is the liberal handing out of punishments to umpires. I guess they're not in charge on the field anymore, much less off it.

Nestaquin has a detailed and well-written summary of the game taken as a whole. Ganesh argues that the media's spin on this as an Australia vs India thing is a very bad idea, but Ottayan conversely suggests that Warne's lauding of Graeme Smith is a remarkable building of bridges between Aussies and Saffers. Ducking Beamers has some youtube clips, sides with Warne, but points out that Warne

slips up a bit when he says that the "Indian umpire" caved; I’m not sure his ethnic background had anything to do with his decision.

And finally Q has the quotes from the press conference. Spirit of cricket, indeed.