A GREAT BLOG FOR SOURAV LOVERS !!
Debanjan Bhattacharya
A piece that I wanted to share...
.....& especially as it is not written by a BONG !!!
Hi all,
When I created this blog “gov”, it was mainly to express my views about political happenings in and around my country.Never thought that I would fit a sports related post in my politicial blogs but aargh I had to do it today. The reason- I see no other reason, other than politics being played by Mr Chappel, behind the omission of one certain Sourav Ganguly from the squad announced on the 28th October for the next 3 ODIs vs Sri Lanka.
The reason for Gaguly's omission from the first 2 ODIs had been the Board's policy that a player needed to prove his fitness in the domestic circuit before making a comeback to the International Squad. Ganguly proved his fitness and confirmed his return to form with a century on a “more than usually“ green turf at Rajkot against an attack comprising of young guns who are knocking at the doors of selection into the Indian team and a spinner who not long ago used to be a part of Indian Test squad. "He is fit but does not figure in the team at the moment," said More at a press conference following the announcement of the squad which snuffed out chances of Ganguly's return to the thick of action. Now that Ganguly had proved his fitness and confirmed his return to form, what could be the reason behind the omission of India's best ever Captain and only one of the 4 players in ODI history to have scored over 10,000 runs in international cricket?Ganguly had been one of the intrumental factors in selection of Mr. Chappel as the Indian Coach, but then wasn't Caeser stabbed by his own beloved Brutus? History has a wierd knack of repeating itself. The Price of Kolkatta was felled by an Aussie who finds him “mentally“ unfit to be in the team.
Ganguly is 33, which is considered by most experts to be in the right age bracket at which a batsman matures and is at his best.So i don't see that to be a justification for leaving out one of the world's finest ODI batsman. JP Yadav, at 31 seems to be in the scheme of events of Mr Chappel when he is just a bits and pieces cricketer, but Ganguly who is certainly a far better bat than Yadav and bowls at almost the same pace is out of the scheme!!! Wierd logic Mr. Chappel!! And Mr. Chappel why did you shield Venugopal Rao in both the ODIs?? It is the magic of one of the world's best batsman, who seems to be in a devastating mood in his comeback series, coupled with the magic of Irfan Pathan that India blew away Sri Lanka in the first 2 ODIs.
Its a shame that the ODI career of one of the world's finest ODI batsman and India's most successful captain ever who built Team India has almost been ended due to the whims of a certain Aussie who feels Dada is not fit enough “metally” to be in the side. Perhaps he deserved better than this, but as Shakespeare said “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones“. So would happen to you too my dear Caeser, all your centuries would be forgotten, and the wise “junta” would crown a new Caeser who would perhaps meet a similar end.
Also, much hooplah is being made about India whipping Sri Lanka 4-0 in a Home Series.Below is the SriLanka's Away Record since 2001.
Matches: 64 ; Wins: 24 Win Percentage: 38.10
By the way, in the course of my reaserch for this blog I came across a very interesting piece of statistics, which is a comparision of the performance in the last 35 matches between Ganguly and one certain player who, some of the “wise“ janta on the street wants to see as the next captain of Indian Team,and the very mention of which would be considered blasphemous by all you cricketing fans out there...
Player Mat Rns HS BatAv 100 50
Sehwag 35 896 108 26.35 1 4
Ganguly 35 979 90 29.66 0 7
To those who asked me to give stats of more matches:
Sehwag 60 1690 130 28.64 2 7
Ganguly 60 1860 112* 35.09 3 10
Source : http://cricinfo.com
And this trend holds true even for the last 30, 25, and 20 matches. (thats is how much I tested it ).Okies now behead me.
PS:
The stats at the end only point to a bit of double standards being adopted by all and sundry and not to justify Ganguly's selection on the basis of that average.Also I would like to question the use of a coach who cannot iron out the chinks in the armour of arguably one of the world's finest ODI batsman which had resulted in his loss of form. After all what is a coach for??Don't tell me Ganguly is too bad a player because it takes “something” to be in the top 4 ODI run-getters in all time list.
posted by Angelz Fear @ 5:28 AM | Comments (530)
