Judgment Time

While most sections of the media have billed Sourav Ganguly’s selection into the Indian test team as a ‘comeback’, it would perhaps be more fitting to describe it as the Bengal tiger’s ‘last chance’. As his supporters celebrate his return to the Test arena after a gap of ten months, even the most ardent of them know that a no-show in South Africa is likely to shut the door on his international career – forever.

No one would be more acutely aware of this than Ganguly himself. He has turned in a respectable report card this domestic season, but he knows his form has not been spectacular enough to carry him into the side independent of his past achievements. Of course, India’s woefully inept batting in the ODI series helped his cause, as also the fact that we finally have a selection committee that doesn’t make appalling pronouncements on “finished careers”.

Ganguly, however, cannot expect to be allowed to ride on past glory for too long. That he was India’s most prolific run-getter for a better part of three years is without doubt – but, at present, this is an irrelevant statistic. He will need to prove that he is amongst the top six batsmen in the country now, and that there is good reason to pick him ahead of players like S.Badrinath, who have been amassing mountains of Ranji runs of late. He can use his monumental series-defining 144 against Australia in Brisbane as inspiration, but it won’t stand as proof that we still need him. Quite simply, Ganguly needs runs in South Africa, not words about how he is capable of them.

Finally, a word of advice for all Dada’s fanatical fans: cut the effigy-burning and Chappell-bashing and let your hero concentrate on performing on the stage he once ruled. And if he fails, take to the streets – not to protest a conspiracy that you suspect did him in – but to give him a glorious farewell befitting India’s most charismatic and successful captain ever.