Saurav Ganguly's Swansong ....

The fourth cricket test match starting today (6th November 2008) at Nagpur between India and Australia has all the makings of an absorbing one. With Anil Kumble's unexpected retirement in Kotla Test and Ganguly's final test match here in Nagpur , a glorious era in Indian cricket is coming to an end. And most probably in a year or two Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid and VVS laxman will also hang their boots creating a big vaccum in Indian cricket. For those of us who have grown up watching Sachin and rest of the 'Fab Four' cricket watching would not be the same again.I remember when India and Pakistan used to play in Sarjah quite frequently in 1990s , a Sachin hundred used to be the ultimate treat and he seldom disappointed.
For all his follies on and off the field ,Ganguly has been the best cricket captain India had.He gave the youngsters confidence and made the team into a winning combination.Before he took the reins hardly any Indian test team used to win abroad in test matches and that too with fair regularity.The Indian cricket needs to go one step forward under Dhoni's leadership where they are not satisfied winning just a one off test match abroad but try and win the test series.Hopefully , India will make the scoreline 2-0 in its favour in Nagpur and make Ricky Ponting and the rest of his gang of ugly Australians eat crow.What is very disappointing is Adam Gilchrist's baseless accusations in his (fictional)autobiography, now Gilchrist was a really good cricketer but it seems he has left all his sportsmanship on the cricket pitch and suffering from some kind of delusion of persecution.Psychotherapy seems to be his only hope !