Ganguly bowled out?

At this point of time, Saurav Ganguly's suspension may well be a blessing in disguise for the Indian team this series. Not only was he awefully out of form, his poor run with the bat was also starting to affect his captaincy.

Ganguly is a man who everyone loves to hate. But his contribution to the Indian cricket has been immense, both as a player and as a captain. Having scored around 15000 runs in international cricket and being the nemesis of opposition bowlers, he even matched Sachin Tendulkar stroke for stroke at one point of time in their opening partnerships. And that is no mean feat. As a captain, he has brought together a lot of youngsters and a fresh lease of life into the team. His penchant for backing for the players he has faith on (like Yuvi and Bhajji) is well known. He has also not shied away from returning the barbs of the opposing captains (Steve Waugh, for instance) when most other Indian captains of the past have been known to cower. What I liked most about him was his fearlessness in all aspects of the game.

His situation is similar to the one which Mark Taylor faced at the fag end of his career. He was bold enough to drop himself from the One Day team in the interest of the side, which Ganguly found hard to do. Eventually Taylor came up with a great triple century which helped him bow with a bang, something which might not happen for Ganguly.

Whether he is given another last chance or not is a different thing, but one wouldn't have liked the Ganguly-Wright partnership, which has brought so much change in the way Indians approach their game, to end in such a sad manner. Only time will tell whether it is the end of Ganguly's love story with the Indian team.