I had a strong feeling that Ganguly wont make it to the national squad after being dropped as captain for the test squad, dropped in both the home series against SA (he is not picked for the final 2 ODIs) and SL.
But the Prince of Kolkata is back into the National test squad.
The drama unfolding…
Check the series of event prior to his comeback:
– spat with the coach, Greg Chapell before the start of 2nd Test versus Zimbabwe.
– going public with full media glare and paid for the result of it. Coach also did come with a e-mail (and it was leaked to the press and we got to read that first before the BCCI!). Many cricketers, media came in support of Greg Chapell.
– injured and was out of national squad.
– proved his fitness by playing in the Duleep trophy outing and scored a century as well; still was not picked for the rest of the ODI series against SL.
– from this point of time, he was literally begging for his place in the squad with comments like: “I wish to place under Dravid” , ” I can bowl as well” , “I wish to bat in any order as the team management wishes” , “One can only play well, it’s upto to the selectors to pick me”…
– Kapil Dev remarked: “One should not beg for a place in the squad”
– Dravid was named the captain for the Test series against SL; Kiran More remarked: “We are grateful for what he has done for India in the past but we are satisfied with his performance now and it’s time to look forward”
– Ganguly steps down as Bengal skipper. Says Deep Dasgupta needs grooming.
– Selected for Test squad but dropped from the remaining ODIs versus SA
Had he been not selected for the test series, then it would have been the end of road of Ganguly and could have been difficult to make a comeback.
I personally wish that should be selected for ODIs instead of tests.. he has always performed well in ODIs and has scored more than 10,000 runs and have a good batting average as well.
His inclusion might have come as a relief to Ganguly. It will now interesting to see how things go about from this point of time as he have will have play under Dravid’s captaincy.
Squad for first Test against Sri Lanka
Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Yuvraj Singh, Sourav Ganguly, Mohammad Kaif, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Harbhajan Singh, Murali Kartik, Anil Kumble, RP Singh
November 24, 2005 at 2:15 pm
I was very happy for the Indian team they are performing well. It was nice to see Indian selection comity as improved there standards of selecting the players for the one day scored, but I was disappointed seeing the team selected for the test mach, I can see few who are not fit to be in the team and few who performed will in the recent time are not in the team.
Any way it’s not a surprise in Our Country there is lot of corruption and its very tuff to change it.
I wish Indian team very all the beat…
November 24, 2005 at 5:32 pm
We should be happy that the job of the National selectors are getting difficult day by day.
Yeah.. I was in a way dissapointed with Zaheer being dropped. Why was Murali Karthick picked? They already picked Anil Kumble. Only 2 spinners will play in a match in all probobility.
We can’t say that those who were not fit was selected, but there were other players who might have been a better choice.
November 24, 2005 at 7:32 pm
actually he has not proved himself he is still not scoring more than 12 or 20 if he cant play well then how can u say that he should be there cant say why did they select him maybe they are giving him a last chance or sumthing
November 24, 2005 at 7:34 pm
Kiran More said that his bowling skills had come to his rescue. He did bowl in the duleep trophy matches and even yesterday he did take a 5 wicket haul.