The Long Ganguly Goodbye - Part II

Why is everyone so fkin loathe to acknowledge Ganguly the batsman? All right, so he was not a modern batting great, but the admiration from Roebuck and Hopps is so grudging that Giant Alien Lizards who landed from Mars last night might be tempted to believe that he made a cricket career exclusively from politicking and being a fantastic leader of men and a shrewd (not brilliant though) strategist. He is an all-time ODI great - almost up there with Tendulkar. Absolutely ridiculous that nobody acknowledges his ODI record as a fact that speaks for itself, rather than as one part of a highly succesful opening partnership. Perhaps his Test record does not merit that he share Fab-ness with the other three, but he did tame the best bowlers in the business at different times in his career. Perhaps not consistently enough to justify his talent, but he did justify his place in the strongest middle order of the era for a larger part of 113 Test matches. So fk off.

Stating the obvious.

Peter Roebuck is either wrong or states the obvious, and very rarely makes any sense. Sample this. India needs to find a balance between the old and the new, apparently. Ahem. And?

His highly original suggestion, for which he gets paid, is:

"Either put Sachin Tendulkar in charge of everything. Or ask Anil Kumble to serve as Test captain and allow his gloveman to lead young T20 and ODI outfits."

And he ends with the classic:

"Dhoni, Sreesanth and company are not the problem. They are the solution, and with a little help from Sachin and, yes, Sehwag, the future must be built around them."

Wow!