Ganguly gets his payback in the nick of time

It’s not the first time this has happened: last year, he fought long and hard for Harbhajan Singh and VVS Laxman to be included against the Australians. What happened next is history.

When the team for the second Test was announced, there were many who arched their eyebrows seeing two left-arm pace bowlers — Zaheer and Nehra — in the side while India’s mainstay spinner was out. Sunil Gavaskar and Michael Holding commented then, on TV, that dropping Kumble was a mistake and, besides, the two left-arm pacers gave the Indian attack a limited variety.

However, things turned out a bit differently. Zaheer took the wickets of Brian Lara and Carl Hopper in the first innings, Nehra in the second. Zaheer also dismissed Chris Gayle yesterday just when he seemed to be running away with the match.

After the last wicket had fallen, Geoff Boycott, who had severely criticised the Indian skipper all through the Test, admitted that Ganguly ‘‘got the selection of the team dead right.”

Perhaps there was more to Ganguly’s faith in this attack than just emotion. It was the same combination — three pacers (Srinath, Nehra, Zaheer) and one spinner (Harbhajan Singh) — that had given him that first win away from the sub-continent in Bulawayo last year. And it is not out of place to recall that Nehra and Zaheer got the lion’s share of the wickets: 9 out of the 20.

If Ganguly acknowledged their performance yesterday, he had also stood beside them in their moment of crisis. In the aftermath of last year’s disastrous tour of South Africa, the national selectors had dropped Nehra and Zaheer and opted for an all-new pace attack for the first Test against England at Mohali. Ganguly was quick to distance himself from the decision and made it clear to all that he was not consulted by the selectors.

In hindsight it seems that the selectors’ choice of Iqbal Siddiqui, Sanjay Bangar and Tinu Yohannan had lacked foresight.

While Ganguly’s decision to drop Kumble may have been, to some extent, the fallout of a perceived ego problem of the skipper’s, there was some empirical basis too. The leg-spinner’s figures of 2/145 in the first Test were not flattering, and Harbhajan Singh — who still retains some of Australian series aura would be expected to take advantage of the rough made by the two left-arm pacers.

Laxman is another in whom the Indian skipper has shown firm faith. The scores of 2, 8, 1 (eeriily so) after that 281 at Kolkata a year back had seen a rising “sack Laxman” chorus. But Ganguly had repeatedly insisted and told to whoever cared to listen that Laxman was a class player. Three fifties in three innings and a Man of the Match trophy to boot, it seems the Laxman question has been laid to rest for now.