Cricket is great leveller is not it ..Just a few days back , India were on a high following their series victory over the arch rivals .
India did everything right on the first day after their openers put on a century stand , thanks to a steller performance from the Indian skipper .

But after that phase , when the time came to put the hands up and to be counted for , Indian batting line up played into the Aussie hand .rahul Dravid got bogged down and took 61 balls to get off the mark and when that happens , the bowlers stick to the line and length , and its hard to score off this aussie attack



India made a tactical blunder by leaving Sehwag out of the palying eleven as he still is a lethal waepon ready to unleash..

Dravid looked scratchy and uncertain during his stay and thought about survival .And thats where the problem started to come .He is taking far too efforts to succeed , when you do that , you often sink more .India would even be more dejected not because th conditions were quite similar to the subcontinent and the pitch had no demons .



having said that the aussie were relentless and unerring .Their fielding truely world class the gives them an extra dimension.India should take a leaf out of the way the openers played .

Its impearative to play good positive cricket and sieze the initiative .India would be ruing on the opportunities missed .
As I kept mentioning in earlier India must now use their weapon Sehwag , untried untested and a wild shot in the dark .But then , this is the time when the risk has to be taken ...lest it will be too late .
The senior batsman will also need to convert their starts into a big one .Somebody from the top four will have to galvanise the team with an epic performance

The best of Ganguly

Career Summary:
Mat I NO Runs HS1 HS2 HS3 Ave 100 50 0

Overall 99 161 14 6346 239 173 147 43.17 15 30 9




Ganguly’s Best :


131 Vs England

After a four year hiatus, and being termed as product of the quota system, Sourav Ganguly played with tremendous composure to carve a sublime 131.
It was an exhibition of batsman ship of the highest quality with a flurry of boundaries on the off side. Connoisseurs relished the silken drives, the sweet timing and the lazy elegance.
Ganguly had truly arrived on the international scene setting the expectations wagging whilst the critics took the usual recourse to explain the spectacle as nothing but a by-product of luck.


144 Vs Australia
Precariously placed at 63/3 skipper Ganguly was positive from the outset He hit the crease running, and drove through the off side with panache and surgical precision Equally decisive on either foot and leaning into the drives he stroked, caressed the ball to the fence. The timing was spot on, and soon the placement matched it. By the time he racked up 144, India was out of woods. An emphatic riposte to his critics, not only did Ganguly set the MCG ablaze with delectably timed drives off either foot , but also sent out a strong signal and did much to set up the series.



239 Vs Pakistan

Depleted with Tendulkar’s absence, India was reeling at 61/4,Ganguly put his hands to up to be counted, stitched a mammoth 300 run partnership partnering with Yuvraj Singh , to bat Pakistan out of the match.. Batting with unusual composure and resolve, the Prince of Kolkatta sent the hapless Pakistani bowlers on leather hunt, compiling a career best 239, his first double ton. What was brought to the fore was the improved footwork and the decisiveness of his stroke-making combined with a shorter back-lift and upright stance.

The Prince of Kolkatta would not have written a better script! .Back to back hundreds and the last one a career best effort , a monumental239 .Critics might say , he has scored those runs against an attack deviod of Shoaib Aktar and an inexperienced attack.
But the credit should be given to the way he took India out of the woods when they were reeling at 61/4 .Ganguly averaged over 50 during his first 2000 runs or so .Post the Tour Down under, 1999 that average kept dropping .He was always found wanting against the short pitch stuff and technical flaw of opening the face of bat soon and play too much on the square on the off side .
This was also the time , when Ganguly was the helm of the affairs and even though Ganguly the captain was doing well , Ganguly the batsman certainly was not .
Interestingly Ganguly's form in limited over internationals hit the purple patch and he was really scoring centuries and the year 2000 saw score 9 of them .
But the poor test form continued where he was either a culprit of playing far too many shots too early or throwing it away after getting starts.


All that changed ,when he was stripped of captaincy first and then unceremoniously dropped from the team .And all of a sudden it seemed all over .

But then there was a change in the selection committee and he got a look in again and corroborated his selection with a classy half century in South Africa.He was the top scorer in that series .
There was looking back since then , turning the year 2007 as the most successful year aggregating 932 runs , with still 3 innings to come .

The fire is still there, what has improved, is his shot selection and the application now and he looked more determined . Moreover he is playing in 'V' initially and then once set displays the entire range of shots.
He always was a seasoned campaigner .
But as they say , when the oil in the lamp is about to finish , it glows at its best.