Sunday, December 25, 2005

Pawar Job: strange to see this from a politician

everything seems to be getting a bit clearer with the latest developments in the cricketing world. for the first time, Saurav Ganguly did the correct thing by directly pleading his case with BCCI head Mr. Sharad Pawar. he was also lucky that he found an able and willing taskmaster in the form of Mr. Pawar, who did the obvious thing that should have been done long back: talking to the senior players from the indian cricket team. since the very beginning, saurav's sacking-then-inclusion-then-sacking-again play was going on not based on the performance reasons alone. it was a sordid affair so far.
it all started with the unease between Greg Chappell and Saurav Ganguly. now to get to the truth, one needed to talk to the third parties, as any one of greg and saurav could have been lying. support staff, manager of the team etc could have been talked to in this regard, and then there were players themselves. if someone raises a point that the manager can take the side of whoever is more friendly to him, then i can understand the concern. but i am sure that the players don't have any reason to take the sides(atleast not the players like rahul, sachin and anil) and even in the rare case where they might, it doesn't matter. there is no reason for the person(coach or a player) whom the rest of the players back to be removed from the team for the reason of 'not gelling well with the team.' When mr. pawar met and talked to the senior players about all the accusations that were levelled against saurav which, until now, believed to be true what with the media coverage it succeeded to attract, and when finally he confirmed to the media and the pulic that there is no truth in those accusations, it only seemed that justice has been done to a player who had not been treated well by anyone in the recent past - whatever may have been his other shortcomings during the same period. the board(could have investigated the matter more earnestly when the uneasiness first arose), the selectors(could have avoided the politics in the selection process), the media, and perhaps even the senior players from the indian team itself, have all wronged saurav to some or the other extent. he should be a relieved person now, for atleast people who were genuinely interested in seeking the truth in the whole controversy that was created, should now see a pattern emerging out of it all- a pattern that suggests that some accusations levelled against saurav were after all baseless. for the rest its either like "we don't believe in anything that supports saurav even if vowed by the God himself" or like "we have always known that saurav can do no wrong, he is an unblemished person."