A Timely Call

The day has finally come! Ah, those ugly on-side shots are gone! The fielding standard of the Indians are once again up to the mark! And oh yeah, of course, the captain won’t speak much! Even if he does it won’t make much sense.

Sourav Ganguly has decided to call it a day as far as international cricket is concerned. With that, a mysterious and one of the most colourful episodes of Indian cricket has come to an end. Mysterious because in spite of being the second highest run scorer for India in one-day cricket, in spite of being the most successful captain of India as far as Test wins are concerned and in spite of being the proud owner of 15 Test hundreds, he’s been at the receiving end of attacks from all quarters, the reasons best known to the attackers.

The senior-junior debate has been going on in Indian cricket for quite sometime now. While clubbing Sachin, Rahul, Kumble, Laxman and Dada together and calling them seniors or veterans is a politically correct move, one fails to understand why Sourav was always the prime target of everyone! The prodigal VVS Laxman has managed a meager 2338 runs from 86 ODIs at an average of 30.76 with 6 hundreds over a decade (he made his ODI debut against Zimbabwe in April, 1998) but he’s still a prodigy! Pundits never bothered to show us fans, the logic behind fielding a prodigy in only 86 ODIs in 10 years. One look at the video clippings of the famous final group league match against the Kangaroos at Sharjah in 1998 though exposes the prodigy. When Sachin was wrongly given out, India was agonizingly close to a memorable victory. But the prodigious Laxman struggled hard to get there without success. Still, he is a prodigy and the man who taught the toddlers to walk is a bad influence. Well, was. He won’t be corrupting the dressing room anymore.

It was interesting to see those reactions pouring in right after the announcement. Everyone from Javagal Srinath to Kiran More suddenly remembered what a great player Sourav Ganguly was! The same Kiran More, whose only claim to fame during his playing days was that he successfully instigated Javed Miandad once. The same Kiran More, who had announced in public that Sourav would never be called back to the Indian squad when he was the chairman of the selectors. That’s okay. If there is no better candidate than More to head the selection panel, then it does give him a right to speak. But what one fails to understand is what did he have against Ganguly? And whatever he had, where and how did that disappear the moment Sourav announced his retirement?

To Sourav’s credit, he’s decided to be the one to put an end to all the humiliation that he definitely didn’t deserve and the timing couldn’t have been more perfect! By announcing his retirement before the series, he’s made sure that the selectors would pick him for the last two Tests against the Aussies (the current squad is only for the first two) and he has now successfully pushed the ball to others’ courts. The first Test is over and the highest run-getter for India in that Test was Sourav Ganguly. It’s anybody’s guess what exactly would the other ‘seniors’ be going through right now. More importantly, what are the selectors thinking now? Anil Kumble has announced that the Bangalore Test against the Aussies was his last at home. So, a premature skipper’s cap for Mahendra Singh Dhoni in Tests? And what would be the future middle-order? Rahul Dravid in spite of his technical brilliance doesn’t justify the wall tag anymore and it’s clear that Sachin Tendulkar only has personal goals in mind at this point in time. Next is England at home in December. Doesn’t sound threatening considering the opponents and the venues. But permanent solutions will have to be found shortly. The one who would be gearing up to answer all those whom he had to ignore for so long is of course Sourav Ganguly. And we all know that he can speak. More fun in store for the Indian cricket administrators! Both on and off the field.