When it was important for him to play and make a statement (see Wasim Jaffer), Saurav Ganguly mysteriously dropped out of his commitment to Bengal in the Ranji Trophy.

The case of Ganguly gets more and more politically flavored and is making a huge mockery of the system at this point. The players (administration) need to understand that they are doing many things wrong in playing with Ganguly as the pawn in their own wars. They are setting a wrong example for the future where someone with enough political clout can apparently get into the team. They are creating sacrifical lambs out of players like Kaif and others waiting in line for a long long time.

Every time they drop Ganguly they have to justify the dropping with some sad reason and every time they bring him back, the reason for bringing him back is even more crappy. At the same time, they have to make up an excuse for dropping someone like Kaif when they bring Ganguly back and drop Kaif.

And then, they are playing with Kaif’s career too. He is constantly knocking on the door and because he keeps getting pulled in and out of the team, the pressure on him to perform at any given point keeps increasing, and that is not a good position to be in as a player outside looking in.

I hope this is the last of the pushing and pulling we have seen with Ganguly and hope form truly is used for future series selection. There are important series coming up in 2006 and there is no room for politics in this apparent ‘new’ team India.