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NEWS ICC Champions Trophy 2006>Sourav Ganguly deserves a better treatment 04th Sept 2006 22.21 IST By Manish Kumar Sourav Ganguly deserves a better treatment from being categorized as a serious candidate for selection and then being ignored again and again from the Indian team. While the national selectors have never ruled out in public that Ganguly can stage a comeback, sources say that the ‘Ganguly issue’ is not even discussed in the selection meetings.
Any highly optimistic hopes were dashed when the selectors met in Mumbai on Sunday and chose a 14-member team for the championship ICC Champions Trophy excluding Ganguly. Never short of words and never reluctant to fight a battle, Ganguly has probably been on his best behaviour since being dropped from the national team after the Pakistan tour in February. Uncharacteristically, he chose to avoid the media for several months and did not utter a word of criticism against those who rule the Indian cricket now. In his desperation to stage a comeback, Ganguly even ditched his mentor Jagmohan Dalmiya who is engaged in a bitter legal wrangle with his successors at the helm of the Indian Cricket Board. The reward seemed to be instant with Ganguly finding a place in the 30 probables for the Champions Trophy. But in the end the dream of a comeback was not realised. Days ahead of the selection committee meeting, Ganguly broke his self-imposed silence by insisting that he was still good enough to play for India. One of the most stylish Indian left-handers to grace the field, Ganguly has scored 10,123 runs from 279 one-day internationals at an average of 40.65 after making his ODI debut against the West Indies in 1992. His career seemed headed to doom before he resurrected it with an enthralling century in his Test debut at Lord's in 1996. Later the same year, he was asked to open the innings in one-dayers with Sachin Tendulkar and together they formed one of the most destructive opening pairs in cricket history. Entrusted with captaincy in 2000 after Tendulkar stepped down, Ganguly took on the job with aplomb, his natural aggression adding spice to his role as the leader of the side. Credit should also go to Ganguly for putting together a strong team packed with youngsters. He backed to the hilt players like Harbhajan Singh and Virender Shewag who have made no secret of the fact that they miss Ganguly in the dressing room. Under Ganguly, India started winning Test matches abroad – a distant dream for most of his predecessors. One of the factors that contributed to India's success was Ganguly's aggressive streak, which at times got on to the nerves of rival skippers, most notably Stephen Rodger Waugh 's. India's former coach John Wright says it was Ganguly's aggression that rubbed on to the youngsters in the team and instilled a killer instinct in them. It was this instinct which perhaps saw India make it to the World Cup final in 2003 for the first time in 20 years and win its first ever series against arch-rivals Pakistan the following year. Ganguly may not deserve a place in the Indian squad but the man who won so many accolades for India surely deserves a better treatment than being told publicly he can come back and then not even considering him for selection. The least the national selectors can tell Ganguly that his international career is over so that the man can have an honorable exit. Also View In-Depth Coverage: ICC Champions Trophy 2006 Team Page: India Team Page: Australia | LIVE CRICKET COVERAGE NEWS ~ Gilchrist has no plans to retire after World Cup ~ Ganguly's new batting approach may cost him sixer record ~ India 'squash the Orange' in World Cup warm-up game ~ Symonds gets a new hairdo for World Cup ~ Dhoni readies himself for stand-up act at World Cup (more in NEWS) FACE-TO-FACE ~ 500-mark a possibility in World Cup: Hayden ~ Minnows add charm to World Cup: Dravid (more in FACE-TO-FACE) COLUMNS ~ Will Sri Lanka replicate 1996 World Cup success? (more in COLUMNS) OFF-THE-FIELD ~ Ganguly again the darling of corporate world ~ Ganguly roped in as brand ambassador of Puma (more in OFF-THE-FIELD) PLAYERS Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Anil Kumble (more PLAYERS) TEAMS India, South Africa, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Australia, West Indies, Zimbabwe, England, New Zealand, Bangladesh, Kenya, Holland | 
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