Sourav Ganguly’s exclusion: A wrong decision by selectors!

ON JANUARY 20, the national selectors had dropped these senior players from the 16 member squad for the one twenty20 match against Australia on February 1, and the tri series featuring Australia and Sri Lanka, beginning from February 3. VVS Laxman, who made valuable contributions in the ongoing test series against Australia, has also been left out from ODI team.

Uttar Pradesh pacer, Praveen Kumar and left hand batsman Suresh Raina found the place in final 16 due to their superb performance in Ranji Trophy. Ishant Sharma, who had dismissed Australian captain Ricky Ponting in both the innings of the Perth test, has also been included in the ODI team. The 16 member team includes, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Yuvraj Singh (vice-captain), Sachin Tendulkar, Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Irfan Pathan, Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa, S Sreesanth, R P Singh, Ishant Sharma, Rohit Sharma, Piyush Chawla, Praveen Kumar and Dinesh Karthik. Munaf Patel, Yusuf Pathan and Manoj Tiwary have been included as standby players, who may join the team in case of any injury to players.

The BCCI’s (Board of Control for Cricket in India) decision has surprised everyone and resulted in massive protests in Ganguly’s hometown Kolkata. As the news of Ganguly was made public, his fans took to the streets of Kolkata. In Kolkata, Ganguly’s fans burnt effigies of the BCCI president Sharad Pawar. Ganguly’s fans also raised slogans against Pawar and demanded Ganguly’s inclusion with posters asking to ‘Bring dada back’. On Ganguly’s exclusion issue the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) said “grave injustice” had been done and said that it would lodge a protest against the BCCI. Talking to media, CAB joint secretary said, “What has been done is totally wrong, grave injustice is being done to him.” He also said, “It seems Dhoni did not want him in the side. Dhoni is more comfortable with juniors so he is in favour of axing seniors. But we will not sit idle. We will lodge a strong protest.”

While talking about the exclusion of Ganguly and Dravid, BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah said, “The emphasis was on fielding abilities and they wanted a young fielding side for the series. That’s why you see a lot of youngsters in the side. The three selectors here had a teleconference with two of their colleagues (Ranjib Biswal and Venkatapathy Raju) and MS Dhoni, who are in Australia, after which the team was selected.”

However, about Ganguly’s possibilities of getting back into the ODI team, BCCI secretary Shah had said, “He is a great player and can come back.”

Ganguly, also known as the ‘Prince of Kolkata’, is a very tough man, as he has already proved in past by making a sensational come back. Surely he will come back into the national side very soon. But, putting much faith on the youngsters at the cost of aggressive and experienced player like Ganguly, seems like an injustice.

If the selectors can include Virender Sehwag in the team, then Ganguly too deserves his place in the team. Most importantly, Australia and Sri Lanka are tough ODI sides and the team needs experienced players like Sourav Ganguly. Now that the team’s responsibility has fallen on the shoulders of youngsters, we should hope for the best. For the selectors we can only hope that they think twice before axing in-form batsman like Ganguly from the team.

According to the BCCI, the decision has been taken by keeping in mind the future prospects of the game. If we consider the statement of BCCI, then it seems that these senior players have been dropped from the side due to below par performances. We do agree that Rahul Dravid had a poor performance in ODI series against Pakistan and Australia, but Ganguly did fairly well with the bat as well as with the ball. So, dropping Ganguly is an injustice done by the BCCI.

During the Pakistan series, after striking double century in Bangalore, Sourav Ganguly do mentioned that he had suffered step-attitude of national selectors in past and got a bad treatment from them. This time too, the selector’s decision had surely disappointed Sourav Ganguly and his fans, and it may affect his game in the future.