You don’t say!
Darius Nakhoonwala
It was like a juicy half-volley, and most leader writers dealt with it suitably. L`affair Saurav had them all going and the result was a treat.
Contrary to what one may have expected, The Telegraph which was first off the mark, did not take Ganguly`s side. Instead, it said "Sourav Ganguly, even in top form, was not good at leaving the ball alone… It is now clear that the art of leaving has completely escaped him… Ganguly`s fans, especially those in Calcutta, may find these facts unpalatable but a coach and a selection committee cannot be driven by the force of jingoistic public opinion."
The rest can be taken as read.
That would have been enough but the temptation to return to the subject during a lean week was too great. So it wrote one more editorial, this time railing at the politicians who expressed their usual, illiterate views. "It must be the first time in the history of modern democracy that a legislature has discussed the composition of a cricket team… The Board of Control for Cricket in India is an autonomous body which, according to its own rules and regulations or conventions, has set up a committee to select the Indian cricket team. This selection committee is accountable to no one save the BCCI. Yet, it is being held up as being answerable to parliament. This is a dangerous omen for institutions"
Quite.
The Hindu got the reasons for the whole incident right. "The accusation put forth is that the three selectors, who were instrumental in Ganguly`s inclusion in the squad for the first two Tests against Sri Lanka after he was left out of the ODI side, were replaced by men preferred by the current regime… The root of this issue lies in his initial selection for the first Test against Sri Lanka. Despite strenuous arguments from coach Greg Chappell that Ganguly did not fit into the scheme of things, the team was saddled with the left-hander, courtesy the aforementioned three selectors… The three former selectors left the new committee with a hornet`s nest, and in attempting to grapple with it, the present wise men have stirred it further."
The Indian Express was caught in two minds: whether to write about the bomb scare in parliament or the Ganguly affair. In the end it combined the two and ended up playing a cross-batted swat.
"Last week, memories of December 13 visited Parliament in the form of a hoax. Sansad Bhavan`s staff once again gave exemplary account of their alertness. Now, alas, the elected representatives are all set to reduce the institution to a farce."
Why? Because the House is all set to discuss Ganguly`s exclusion. But in fairness it was the only one to point out that even "Brinda Karat, already bristling at the "injustice" parcelled out by cricket selectors" had entered the fray. "A colleague heads the BCCI. It will be so effortless to simply put him on trial."
The Express exhorted readers to "brace yourself for a pathetic spectacle" and said that "the Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar must refuse to speak in the House in his capacity as BCCI chief. That office is not accountable to Parliament."
It ended with a question that has struck everyone. "All the strident voices piping up on Ganguly`s behalf happen to belong to politicians from West Bengal—from CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee to those MPs forever in search of a cause, Basudeb Acharia and Gurudas Dasgupta."
The Deccan Herald said "the selectors` stand on Ganguly`s exclusion-inclusion-omission still doesn`t answer all questions about the future of Indian cricket. India has an ageing batting line-up, with the top performers in the team right now —Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, V V S Laxman — are all over 30. So if the Indian team were to break away from Ganguly, it is better now than later."
The Pioneer and the Business Standard ignored the whole thing. Which, perhaps, was the best response. As the Telegraph said about leaving the outgoing ball, some subjects are simply to wearisome to comment on.