The final act(-worma)

Is of inclusion of Saurav Ganguly in the squad for first test against Sri Lanka. As the elevation of Dravid to captaincy, this one's also on expected lines, to me atleast. Whether he deserved it can be argued, but not his inclusion, because of his performance in the tests in Zimbabwe and which means waiting for him to fail substantially before dropping him. And now, the ball is most definitely, and with complete finality, in his court (ofcourse if he makes it to the playing XI).

The difference between him being selected, and Zaheer being 'dropped' (with both performing fairly ok in domestic matches, enough to suggest atleast no further decline in form) is probably that Zaheer did not do well in his last international outing. But even then, that comes as a surprise to me. RP Singh, while definitely improving, could have been tried further in ODIs.

Balaji is also missing, even from the Tamil Nadu Ranji opener. Not sure if he's fit, since last week read him saying he was raring to go.

And in continuation of slightly strange statements coming from More, after what we discussed yesterday, comes this reason for Ganguly's selection

The selectors decided that he had done well as an allrounder recently and chose to pick him as a bowling allrounder.

But probably that's how he's being judged now? I don't know what to make of this. Sure he's taking a few wickets in domestic matches (4 wicket out of 5 in recent Ranji match against Maharashtra) but this still sounds strange. If only for the fact that in the last few test seasons we've seen him as a specialist batsman only.

But I still wonder...have we heard the last of 'it all'...anyway....flame on :-)

Update: just when I thought this doesn't get any stranger, the cricinfo story is updated (and the earlier quote above is missing) with the full explanation. And Zaheer missed because of SG being chosen as an allrounder!

Kiran More, the chairman of selectors, added that Zaheer Khan missed out because Ganguly would provide a bowling option.

"We thought we'll use him as a batting allrounder in the team," said More while addressing the press. "We discussed it for a long time and after deliberations we decided to have him in the team as an allrounder. It will give more comfort to the team balance."

While justifying RP's selection thus, he again, sort of, tried to make the point that Zaheer wasn't fighting for a place with RP, but with, SG!

"RP Singh has done well in the one-dayers and we have found a few young bowlers who are promising. If they perform well in domestic cricket, they will definitely get opportunities. We missed out on Zaheer Khan also. He's performed outstandingly in domestic cricket and it was a tough call to leave him out. Also, we consider Ganguly as an allrounder, that's why Zaheer Khan has missed out."