Sourav achieved most of his comeback runs against Pakistan, hardly the most powerful team. And to compare him to Laxman is ridiculous as Laxman's career average is higher than Ganguly's.

Why shouldn't the point about Australia be valid considering their next series is against Australia? This arguement seems borne more out of boas than any more substantial arguement. The point that hits best is that of Dravid, who is having a long glut of poor form, yet he also averages more than Ganguly (12 runs more than Ganguly as a matter of fact). If I had my choice, I'd drop the pair and go with Badrinath and Suresh Reina. Unfortuantely I'm not a selector.

Getting picked for the first 2 tests might be a bad thing for Ganguly. If he fails, it'll be the end of his test career.

Coming to laxman's avg against australia..Just leave his first 5 to 6 tests against australia and look at his avg.

In my opinion, Ganguly has always been the weakest link in India's middle order.

Barath, please don't post such idiotic posts ! The worth of somebody cannot be measured by average alone. If you want to see the contribution made by Laxman to Indian cricket, just browse through the matches that India has won or drawn in the last few years and see laxman's score and the match score when he came to bat. that will tell some story which i need not explain now !

Ganguly has been a great servant for Indian cricket for long, but based on current form both ganguly and dravid are not automatic choices.

Dear Mr Bharat,

Would you now care to engage brain, and post Saurav Ganguly's average against Australia?

Thank you. Come again.

I would take out two sentences from this piece.
1. "...And he looks more fit than, say, Viru. Who looks to be on a diet that has strictly fat and nothing else."
- Well you seem to be having an old picture of Viru in your mind. In the last couple of years, Viru has actually reduced his weight and now looks much leaner.

2. "...Forget it. Oh, well! I guess the national selectors must know things ordinary folk don't."
- Is this something to be surprised about? Aren't former international players supposed to know the game better than the so called ordinary folks who seldom play with anything than a tennis ball and indulge in mindless hero worshipping and jingoism?

VJ and Kartik - I am a great fan of Sourav and I don't claim my little post is unbiased. I am pissed at the reasons for dropping Ganguly, that's all. Both of you had good points to share, but calling someone's post 'idiotic' and asking someone who you don't even know to 'engage brain' is not the right way to do it. We can all share our views without necessarily being hurtful, can't we?

Cricket is not about going out there and just hitting the ball. It is all about the impact the player is leaving on the game. Laxman has been a tough nut for Australian bowlers. When ever Laxman goes out to bat, we have seen Australians certainly pushing themselves to the defending mode instead of attacking him. They are the loosers against Laxman. So they know it better.

We shouldn't mix our emotions about any individual player with the game. The game is more important than any player. Definitely yes. Everybody has to leave the team sometime. Any new players in the team will tend to speak to players like Sachin, Rahul or Laxman and learn from them. Certainly not from players like Sourav. That matters a lot.

I am sorry Bharat, but this artical is very biased towards Ganguly. I have to admit that Ganguly is a good batsman, but he is no where the quality of Dravid and Tendulkar. I don't want to talk about Laxman because everytime I say something about him he ends up proving me wrong. Bharat Please think back to the days when Ganguly made his comeback after he was shown the door by Mr. Chappell and CO. Ganguly was feildig better then some youngsters, he was diving around in the feild, he was hungry, but slowly over time hes back to his usually self, now he doesn't care how many runs the batsmen are running while hes walking behind the ball, he doesn't care how many runs the team needs while he is batting to survive at the crease. I am a fast bowler and everything time i see Ganguly defend i fancy my chances against him, on the other hand when i see Dravid and Tendu defending i just can't imagine the ball ever betting through them. Ganguly is not a test player,never was, never will be. cheers

I just want to repeat the lines, I read somewhere, "Having led India to the final of a World Cup after beating Australia in a Test series, he leaves a captaincy record that will be hard to match."

Why ganguly is going to quit? i am dieheard fan of ganguly. he is one of the best bats man in the world. i cryed a lot in the week end. so please keep on play up to worl cup... if possible please forward this message to Ganguly.

Ganguly deciding to quit has been totally blown out of proportions. The reason behind ganguly's retirement as he clearly pointed out that he was not selected for the ODIs, and he wanted to play both forms of cricket. And FYI, Dravid and Laxman don't play ODIs anyways, we all saw what Sehwag did the other day with the bat and his two brilliant slip catches in Ind Vs England ODI, and Sachin is still a terrific one day batsman, remember his contributions in the finals down-under??