Chappell vs Ganguly:

One issue that hogged the limelight throughout the Indian newspapers for a long time this past month was the Chappell-Ganguly imbroglio. Frankly speaking, I was too bored even to glance through this latest saga in the Indian cricket soap opera. For years, I have been pleading my case that Ganguly for all his so called aggression as a captain was a super-flawed cricketer who had increasingly become a bane to the Indian Test team rather than a boon. The Indian team under Ganguly has in the final analysis been just above-average and my thesis all along for this performance has been the introduction of young talent unencumbered by the weight of constant losing. Kaif, Yuvraj and Harbhajan were part of age group teams who were always winning competitions as youngsters and this eclectic mixture added tremendous value to the Indian team. Added to this, the metamorphosis of Dravid from a good to a great batsman was the reason for India's sporadic strong showing. All the credit that went to Ganguly for good performances, for me was rather out of place. To me, Ganguly was a supreme Machiavellian politician, using the rumblings in the Board and in the team to his benefit and performing when it least mattered (against teams of no intrinsic cricketing value), and maintaining his average in the early 40s by some means or the other.

Greg Chappell confirmed, what I had in mind all along, by calling a spade a spade. Unfortunately the muddle that the Indian media-the Board-the cricketing firmament is, Chappell's honesty and social constructivism has no role to play in a free-for-all realist power game that is Indian cricket. One needs to understand international politics to theorize Indian cricket, thats my honest opinion!