No One Picked Ganguly!

One of the New Year resolutions for me was that I am not going to give air to any controversy this year, but we are all born with our destinies. This weekend I saw two great movies. One was No One Killed Jessica the other being “NO ONE PICKED GANGULY”.

The IPL auction going live this year was equally an extravagant and entertaining event as IPL itself. Money poured, players became super rich and drama was at its all time high when suddenly a name appeared from the sack of players. ‘Opening Bid for Sourav Ganguly is 400000 USD, any takers’. What followed was ‘SILENCE’, a dark deep silence, and the verdict player remained unsold. The story remained same the next day as well, no takers for probably pioneer of aggressive cricket in India.

There are a lot of debates going on across the country, on television, streets, offices, colleges and name any place in your mind. I am not going to be judgmental whether it was correct or not for the teams to not pick Ganguly. All the franchisees are matured enough and have their strategies and homework done before going to Auctions. The point of concern here is how it is going to be taken in the Bengal Tiger’s own city. I learned today that already a community of KKR haters has gone online in Facebook, twitter is flooded with anti KKR pro Ganguly comments. The risk is high because we have already witnessed what happened at Eden Gardens during 1996 World Cup (and to me what forced me to take the resolution).

Ganguly has been an exceptional player during his tenure and certainly there is no doubt about that and as an Indian cricket fan and left handed batsman myself, even I felt a little moved by the decision. But practically thinking he is not playing much cricket since last 2 years and he is out of touch, teams had to bid for next 3 years and would have weighed their respective prospects before going into the bidding. Ganguly, Dravid and Kumble raised their base values from 200000 USDs to 400000 USDs before going into the auction. Kumble stepped out of auction and joined the RCB selection committee at the last moment; this is what I would say a graceful way to make the exit. Rahul on other hand had a slow start in auction but finally he was picked, reason might be he is still playing at international level.

This has certainly been a problem with Ganguly’s career that there is always a controversy blown out of proportion when he is taken away from the game. Mat Hayden and Gilchrist retired when they were at the peak of their batting form, Steve Waugh on the other hand forced to step down even when he was performing great. This happens to everyone at some point in their careers. Looking into the present scene could Ganguly have made a way more graceful exit from International Cricket scene and from IPL itself?

The positions are still empty for uncapped players and all the franchisees still have a lot of sum remaining in their budget. He might still be picked by any team, but will it be any more satisfying for him as a player? The problem with the fan base will however persist because we as a nation are still idol worshippers, only the faces of Gods have changed.