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If ever a man was hoist by his own petard, it is
Sourav Ganguly.
All this talk of his being forced out of the team due
to 'politics' is both ironical and hypocritical as it
was the self-same BCCI politics that saw him push his
way back into the current Test series in the first
place.
Going by his form over the past 18 months and the poor
results of the Indian side under his captaincy in the
same period, Ganguly owed his place solely to the fact
that his benefactor Jagmohan Dalmiya was ruling Indian
cricket.
For his backers now to cry hoarse about his
victimization under the new dispensation that has
taken over the Board therefore smacks of
double-standards.
He had no hesitation in using the top Board officials
to hang onto his place when the entire nation (barring
of course, Bengal) was calling for his ouster. To use
another appropriate cliché in this case, a man who
lives by the sword, perishes by it.
There is no doubt that Ganguly brought a new resolve
into the Indian team after taking over in 2000 at the
height of the match-fixing scandal. His leadership
skills in the 2003 World Cup and in Australia the same
year helped the team reach new heights.
However, like so many others before him, his batting
began to suffer after taking over the captaincy, both
in Test and ODIs. This was masked as long as the team
was winning. But all that changed dramatically
following the tour to Pakistan last year, in which let
us remember Rahul Dravid led in the first Test when
India won a Test match in Pakistan for the first time.
Ganguly made a series of miscalculations which
combined with his batting woes and the slide of the
team, brought about his own demise.
Skipping the Nagpur Test against Australia last year
on the eve of the match after bitterly complaining
about the pitch was perceived by his own team-mates as
a huge cop out.
Let us also remember that it was Ganguly who was
instrumental in bringing in coach Greg Chappell as a
replacement for John Wright.
His act of scoring a laborious century against
Zimbabwe in the first Test at Bulawayo three months
ago and then promptly revealing a confidential
conversation with the coach was an act of pure
selfishness.
Having fired the first shot in the war with the coach,
Ganguly and his backers lack credibility when they now
target Chappell. Ganguly himself showed an utter lack
of dignity in the matter and this being a two-way
business, he could hardly expect to be shown any
dignity in return. The best thing would have been for
him to announce his retirement once he lost the
captaincy to Dravid instead of hanging on and dragging
Indian cricket down with him. But then knowing when to
leave at the right time has rarely been a trait among
Indian cricketers.
It was his deputy Dravid who saved Ganguly's skin in
Bulawayo. To now attack the incumbent captain for not
standing by Ganguly is grossly unfair.
His third miscalculation was in skipping the
Challenger Series in October which is the basis for
national selection, citing the alibi of 'mild tennis
elbow.' All these moves of his backfired and now he
has in effect written his own cricketing swansong. It
is therefore pointless to shed crocodile tears on his
behalf.
Indian cricket has been suffering over the past 12
months as he was a mere passenger in the side, halting
the progress of younger, fitter and more deserving
players.
The coach's damaging assessment of the former captain
in his diabolically leaked e-mail rings ever more
true. Too much energy and attention has been wasted
on the fortunes of just one player and now that he is
out, it is time to move on for the sake of Indian
cricket.
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More Views by Gulu Ezekiel
