We all knew that Ganguly had problems facing short-pitched bowling…yesterday he showed us that he has become vulnerable against spin too. He has averaged 15 with the bat so far this year.
It was a few years ago that Dravid said “On the offside, there is GOD and then there is Saurav Ganguly”(or probably vice-versa) referring to Ganguly’s batting stength on the offside. While we would all want Mr Ganguly to resume his competition with GOD…it looks like it is not going to happen anytime soon…so in the meantime why not try talented individuals like Yuvraj Singh/Mohammad Kaif/Dinesh Mongia in his place.
It is an unwritten rule in India that a captain is never dropped , no matter what his individual performance as a player is like…so I take this opportunity to plead to Mr Ganguly…could you please step aside in the interest of the nation ?
Now to the other small batting problem…and suprisingly its about the openers. Gautam Gambhir simply fails to convert good starts into 50s and 100s. It may seem like the Indian openers have so far delivered in the series…but if you look at the scorecard closely…you would see that Mr Sehwag does bulk of the scoring most of the times…That reminds me..anybody knows where Sadgopan Ramesh is these days ? He is/was a gifted player. Could score centuries against the Akrams/Waqars…he scored good runs in the side matches of the last Australian tour he was selected for…was however not retained for the one-day series…and have been forgotten/ignored since…Simply put..I think he was mishandled by our selectors…and wish he was there to add strength to an already intimidating Indian top-order. (just want to add that Yaseer Hameed is now in danger of going the Sadgopan Ramesh route).
I suspect that Ganguly’s career is winding down. I always thought he would last till the 2007 World Cup, but I’m not so sure now.That said, I think the Indian management will think long and hard about dropping a guy who is a valuble captain because of problems with his batting.
I would agree with you that Gambhir has’nt played as well as someone would expect from him. He seems like much more a ODI player than a Test player.
Funny you should mention Sadgopan Ramesh, I was just watching that Indo Pak Test of '99 where he batted very well. I doubt you will see him again though, that was a long time ago.
You should bring back Akash Chopra, the strokeless openor. LOL
As for Yassir, I doubt he will dissapear since we are hard up for openers, though our batting lineup is very crowded now…
I agree that Ganguly is waste of a player for batsman, but I don't think any side in the world has dropped their captain for their individual performance when the overall team's performance is not as bad. Ganguly is as lucky as Aussie captain to have so many good players in the team, hence is enjoying the "luxury" of not performing. He may only go down if the team's overall performance goes down.
What's funny is that a few weeks ago an interview of Ganguly was posted on CricInfo and in it he defended his miserable batting form by saying that except the Aussie captain Ponting, ALL captains suffer poor batting form. LOL, speak for yourself boy.
It really was funny because he also included Inzamam’s name in ‘miserable batting’ captains while Inzi’s batting has tremendously improved since taking captaincy!
With all due respect Mr. some1, I strongly oppose your viewpoint. I am sure that ganguly still has a lot of cricket left inside him and he is just one stroke away from making a comeback as a batsman. Yes he has not performed well lately, but i don’t see anything seriously wrong with his batting technique except enormous pressure he is facing these days. What I am trying to say that the crisis he is facing is primarily “psychological” than technical. I have total confidence in Ganguly’s abilities as a batsman and he is too good of a player to be dropped just because he has failed in last couple of tests.
So far gambhir is concerned, he is a very talented player and India should retain him no matter what. He plays well with a lot of attacking strokes. He does not possess one of the best defensive technique but he can develop. Let me say that that he is a better player than taufeeq Umar and Yasir hameed. I saw him playing against Australians and he was really good. Why do u guys want to change a young player after couple of tests? Gambhir should be tried on international tours as well. So far he has only played in India.
while Inzi’s batting has tremendously improved since taking captaincy!