Eventually, the Dadagiri cost him

The curtains seemed to have come down on cricket8217;s longest-running soap opera today with Sourav Ganguly being dropped. 8216;8216;It w...

The curtains seemed to have come down on cricket8217;s longest-running soap opera today with Sourav Ganguly being dropped. 8216;8216;It was a tough call8217;8217;, said Kiran More when asked whether it was curtains for Ganguly. 8216;8216;We are not looking back.8217;8217;

There will, as usual, be debate over the rights and wrongs but in Kolkata, strangely enough, the mood among his benefactors at the Cricket Association of Bengal appears to be one of exasperation with the player8217;s attitude. And with the CAB saying enough is enough, it seems the door has finally closed on India8217;s most successful captain.

Over the past few weeks Ganguly himself had shown, on the field and off it, that he doesn8217;t really fit in with the Chappell school of cricket.

A reluctance to play domestic matches and a conspicuous tendency to stay aloof from the Bengal team eventually gave his critics enough ammunition against him.

Since his return from Pakistan, the CAB has had to face several uncomfortable questions over Ganguly8217;s 8216;8216;attitude towards the Bengal team8217;8217; during the Ranji Trophy one-dayers.

First, he said he wouldn8217;t travel with Deep Dasgupta and the team to Jamadoba, near Dhanbad. Then, despite repeated 8216;8216;requests8217;8217; from the CAB, he dodged Bengal8217;s opener against Tripura on February 11. He eventually agreed to play the remaining one-dayers but the CAB cringed when he was seen travelling to and from Kolkata every day instead of staying with the team.

Not that he had a good time with the bat there: The left-hander managed just 92 runs in three matches, averaging a modest 30.66. And his 72 against Jharkhand came only after he was dropped twice, on 11 and 16. His two other knocks, of 12 and 8, would not have inspired the national selectors.

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There are many in the CAB itself who reckon that the 32-year-old, despite not having done much wrong after the Pakistan series, is paying for his attitude ahead of the season-opening Challenger series and the now-famous Bengal-Tamil Nadu Ranji match on an Eden greentop.

When asked to play the Challengers, Ganguly dropped out citing 8216;8216;tennis elbow8217;8217;. Then followed the reluctance to play the Tamil Nadu match after being picked for the Pakistan tour. It even forced the BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah to shoot him a letter, 8216;8216;directing8217;8217; him to play.

He played 8212; and, as if to prepare him for Pakistan, the Eden Gardens ground staff prepared an unusually green wicket on which Bengal hurtled to a 222-run defeat.