Got this off another site,
Sunday November 27, 2005
Ganguly's game is an open book
By Harsha Bhogle
I remember being in trigonometry classes many years ago and being occasionally stumped by identities; those questions where you were given the left hand side and the right side of an equation and had to provide a proof (something like: prove that (cosecA-sinA)(secA-cosA)(tanA+cotA = 1)! They seemed easy because you knew where you had to get to in the end. And so we bumbled and bulldozed our way through, often creating new laws of trigonometry on the way! It wasn?t always good enough because it was the path, the procedure, that mattered not the end we knew.
India?s selectors found themselves in a similar quandary when they picked the team for the first test. They knew the right hand side of the problem (pick Ganguly!) but weren?t quite sure of the process that would get them there. And so I?m afraid they have bumbled and bulldozed their way through as well. Their solution is neither elegant nor correct.
Producers of films faced similar problems too and came up with a solution that works for them. When they have a star with a small role to play, he cannot be top of the credits nor can he, therefore, be the third or fourth name. Some get by with a ?guest appearance or special appearance? but my favourite is where the title sequence reaches a climax, the music, the drums, reach a crescendo, the screen goes momentarily blank and then suddenly gets filled with ?and above all, Dharmendra!? India?s selectors seemed to have done that; picked 14 and ?above all, Sourav Ganguly?.
It needn?t have been that way. Ganguly isn?t a young man with a hint of promise in his kit bag. His game is an open book, he?s made 5000 runs at a decent average of 41 and till he got waylaid a bit by the frills of his job was a mighty fine player. The desertion of focus, unlike hair loss, is not an irreversible process and it could be argued that Ganguly might still get it back. That is the kind of judgement selectors are expected to make, they are allowed a qualitative input, even a hunch where the statisticians are required to be imprisoned by hard numbers. Both have a role to play and neither can play each other?s.
Accordingly I would have admired the selectors if they had said that having been out of the team, they believed Ganguly would be hungry and that they felt they owed a very fine player that opportunity. Some might have disagreed with that opinion, we are all entitled to that, but it would have been an opinion born out of conviction. It would have meant leaving out either Yuvraj or Kaif, a hard call, but that is part of a selector?s job.
Instead the selectors have stooped to compromise, they have embraced that vicious enemy of excellence and initiative. They have picked a player for the wrong reason and by trying to justify it, are looking in need of a hiding place. The same committee that was bringing fresh air in has succumbed. They have displayed their weakness by calling Ganguly a ?bowling all-rounder? or a ?batting all-rounder? or both. They could have called him a reserve wicket keeper and wouldn?t have been much further off reality. The last time we heard something as funny was when Shane Warne said he took a diuretic because his mother asked him to.
Sourav Ganguly has always been a batsman who could bowl a bit and he will play the first test as just that, no more, for India cannot play six batsmen, a wicketkeeper, Ganguly and three bowlers. Asking him now to be anything else is being unfair to a person who has done wonderful deeds for Indian cricket. Ganguly is a tough cricketer, he has faced challenges before and he has another in front of him. All sportsmen go through that and Ganguly must approach it proudly. By having unnecessary tags attached to him, he is put through greater pressure than he needs. I am not sure he has the best friends at the moment. They seek to bring him in through the back door when as a proud and fine cricketer, he should be blasting the front door open. He?s been down that path as well.
The last couple of days are suggestive of the chaos that surrounds us. We often talk of finding a way through it and indeed, clever leaders generate chaos so that no one else can navigate. But the problem with chaos is that it doesn?t recognise patterns. There was a very good one emerging in our cricket. Pity about the past tense, hopefully for the time being.
As a long-time admirer of Ganguly and the spirit he brought to Indian cricket, I must confess I am very keen to see him do well. But he must walk in through the front door as one of India?s six best batsmen, not be made to slink in with another name tag on his chest.
