India announce unchanged side for next three games

After the Indian team went 2-0 up against the Lankans, the selectors met and announced the team for the next 3 ODIs of the seven game series. The biggest question was about Sourav Ganguly: Would he be drafted in after one Duleep Trophy hundred.

If we let emotion cloud our judgement, it does seem very harsh on Ganguly, especially when he did get runs and prove his fitness, which were two of the three criteria pointed out by Chappell and mentioned by the BCCI after the patch-up, the third being his attitude.

But viewed dispassionately, I think the selectors did a wise thing by not going by big names and keeping faith with the winning combination which has shown tremendous improvement, admittedly on the basis of only two games.

There is always talk about such a decision might be the end of the road of any senior cricketer. But personally, I hope that Ganguly faces upto the reality and gets more runs under his belt to merit a righteous selection in the near future. Ganguly's captaincy may have taken a beating in the last few months and that has also reflected in his batting.

Instead of seething within and thinking that everyone is conspiring against him and wallowing in self-pity, he should see this as the wake-up call. He really ought to get down to basics, breathe a sigh of relief and concentrate on his batting and show the world that he has still has a lot to offer as a player, in all forms of the game. After all, someone who has 5000 test runs and 10000 one-day runs doesn't suddenly become a bad player. Well, the critic would say that it hasn't been sudden, it has been apparent over the last two years. But there is no question that he has the ability. It may just be a matter of getting that space between the ears sorted out.