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Greg, Sourav fire back

R. Mohan

This is the ultimate of sporting ironies. Sourav Ganguly gets a renewed lease of Test life from the new selection committee that has ruled the batsman must play on while guru Greg Chappell sits in the opposite camp, wearing his nation's colours.

The public spat between Greg and Ganguly had gripped the nation during a tour of Zimbabwe in 2006, the matter hotting up further with a leaked email that was suspected to have come from within the team via the coach's laptop. Time has played the strangest tricks on both parties who continue to be in the limelight of international cricket.

The pair was once so close to each other that Ganguly had, some years ago, even gone Down Under to have a private dinner with Chappell to tap his brain for batting tips. From there to the Indian coaching job was a natural succession that may have also been helped along by the then Team India captain.

Their fallout in Zimbabwe, allegedly over Ganguly's politicking with other senior batting greats like V.V.S. Laxman, changed the scene so much that the sparks were flying around the cricket scene until the World Cup disaster. While Ganguly survives to the day, Chappell packed his bags. Called upon by Australia to fill the bench as a guru with a huge Indian connection, Greg wears the gold and green colours of his home country again. Team India may initially have found that perplexing but then sport, like art, is universal and coaches do move from one country to another.

In the high tech era of enhanced video technology, analysis is available to anyone through a computer program. What extra inputs about the Indian team can Greg bring that Australia does not know about already after years under John Buchanan?

Nothing is a secret anymore, with each batsman's strengths and weaknesses already analysed threadbare on high definition screens and the actions of all bowlers the subject of careful video study. Where Greg is expected to be useful is with regard to his knowledge of Indian conditions although he never toured here for Australia as a batsman.

The new committee under Krish Srikkanth has taken a sympathetic view of Ganguly who had just been abandoned by the Dilip Vengsarkar panel that had left the former skipper out of even the Irani Cup match, the eternal selection trial that heralds each new season.

A failure in one series cannot wipe out 10 years of achievements is the skipper's line of thinking that has been endorsed by Srikkanth, the very man who once put Ganguly down as his 14th man in World Cup 2003. That comment brought on so much frost that Cheeka was restricted to studio duty and asked not to be present at India matches for fear of a conflagration.

Much water has flowed down the Hooghly and the Cauvery since then to the extent that the chairman and middle order fixture are seen as buddies. The sneaking suspicion is the new committee would not have wanted a wave of negative publicity that invariably follows in the wake of Ganguly omissions.

The committee may actually be in a win-win situation now because they can distance themselves quickly from the issue if Ganguly continues to fail, as he did on the tour of Sri Lanka. But, if he succeeds, they can take the credit for keeping him on the team.

Chappell, who ensured Ganguly was ejected from the captaincy after the team returned from the controversial tour of Zimbabwe, will now be part of a think tank that will be seriously plotting Ganguly's downfall.

If there is one thing common in their batting, it is awkwardness against the short ball. So, we can expect more physical bouncers on the field than verbal beamers as the two run into each other in the series. It is somehow fitting that Greg and Ganguly should be in opposite camps now. Let the sparks fly.