As he battles to save his career, Sourav Ganguly is on the lookout for any sort of lifeline. Instead, there’s a bit more fuel added to the fire — and it comes from his old sparring partner Steve Waugh. In his autobiography Out Of My Comfort Zone, to hit the market shortly, Waugh criticises Ganguly’s habit of interacting closely with groundsmen preparing pitches for international matches. It ‘‘wasn’t too different to match-fixing’’, the former Australian captain says. ‘‘He was. constantly bickering over the nature of pitches and trying to influence the groundsmen in India. To me, this wasn’t too different from match-fixing, because captains who try this on are attempting to alter the conditions in collusion with a force they shouldn’t be tampering with. ‘‘It’s a groundsman’s job to prepare a pitch to the best of his ability, then hand it over to the players for them to adapt to the conditions. That’s why it’s called a ‘Test’; it’s supposed to challenge you, not appease to your wishes.’’ Waugh and Ganguly, who squared off in two memorable Test series, shared a frosty relationship that was marked by the Indian captain revealing an unerring ability to get under his counterpart’s skin. Waugh admits to as much, saying he was ‘‘wound up’’ by Ganguly’s ‘‘continued petulance’’ in being late for the toss and then walking off by himself. In his book — one foreword, in a delicious twist of irony, is written by Rahul Dravid — Waugh calls Ganguly ‘‘elitist’’, a ‘‘bloke who made a few rules for himself in his exalted position’’. Yet, to his credit, he is appreciative of what Ganguly did for the Indian team. ‘‘I saw in Sourav a committed individual who wanted to inject some toughness and combativeness into a side that had often tended in the past to roll over and expose a soft underbelly’’. Ganguly is currently in Pune preparing for a Ranji Trophy match. You can be sure his dressing-room reading will not include Out Of My Comfort Zone.
