What a contrast !

[Guest dada_rocks]

Bring sehwag back in test eleven and see for urself .. he will write another comeback story.. I won't cal it ceomback becasue he never was out of touch in test cricket to start with

[Sachinism]

Total Ownage by the Royal Bengal Tiger .....

Arun Lal??

[bharat297]

Ganguly has amazing mental toughness and he is a real fighter. True legend.

[Guest BossBhai]

-- Removed on request of the user --

[Anakin]

:two_thumbs_up::hatsoff: Dada indeed rocks!!!! Shame on the fickle minded fans who keep on harping BS about politics, mafia, and what not. I'm sure there won't be too much of that BS for some time at least and what a relief that is.

[Chaos]

:two_thumbs_up::hatsoff: Dada indeed rocks!!!! Shame on the fickle minded fans who keep on harping BS about politics, mafia, and what not. I'm sure there won't be too much of that BS for some time at least and what a relief that is.

the real test starts in australia mate :D

[THX_1138]

indeed! what a turn around! i was one of those who had written him off after he was dropped, less because i doubted his ability to play but more because i could not quite determine where to play him! but he has come back with all the poise that has been idiosyncratic of a brash, arrogant and boombastic saurav ganguly of yesteryears! if he can repeat the ODI dominance he maintained during the 1999-2001 period, i see him playing the next WC.

[Anakin]

the real test starts in australia mate :D

:haha::haha: True, but I'll bet he'll do quite well, as he has done in SAF and England :giggle:

[Anakin]

indeed! what a turn around! i was one of those who had written him off after he was dropped' date=' less because i doubted his ability to play but more because i could not quite determine where to play him! but he has come back with all the poise that has been idiosyncratic of a brash, arrogant and boombastic saurav ganguly of yesteryears! if he can repeat the ODI dominance he maintained during the 1999-2001 period, i see him playing the next WC.[/quote'] Yes Indeed :hysterical::hysterical:

[Chaos]

:haha::haha: True, but I'll bet he'll do quite well, as he has done in SAF and England :giggle:

saf he was OK... but the bowling quality he will face in AUS is like 5 times greater :D. so lets hope he ATLEAST averages 25 ;)

[Anakin]

saf he was OK... but the bowling quality he will face in AUS is like 5 times greater :D. so lets hope he ATLEAST averages 25 ;)

It'd have been true before, but don't think that'll hold with Lee, Tait, Johnson and Clark.

[Mr. Wicket]

Finest contrast of all: Bangalore 2005. Couldn't handle Sami, couldn't even handle Afridi. Had one of the saddest dismissals ever being bowled by Afridi and then standing his ground to question it, before being soundly booed off (and given plenty of flak at the presentation). Followed by barely making a run in the ODIs that followed, and I imagined his career would end in the next 6-12 months. Bangalore 2007: Graceful, elegant century under pressure, encouraging and supporting a youngster whom he'd long backed in a big partnership. His second ton in consecutive games, and the sort that makes those grim days of 05 seem like long, long ago.

[kabira]

Greatest thing for him was that he was dropped and got himself away from captaincy and cricket. Even Saurav has been saying that time away from international cricket did him good and let him concentrate on his batting.

[Prudent]

Ganguly's avergae in the year 2005: 24.95 http://www.howstat.com/cricket/Statistics/Players/PlayerYears.asp?PlayerID=2059 Anyway great comeback by Ganguly

[Ram]

Ganguly's fairytale Ganguly's fairytale Sambit Bal December 9, 2007 If you are looking for a clue to what has helped Sourav Ganguly sustain his spectacular run in Test cricket since his return at the fag end of last year, don't bother looking at his footwork or the flow of the bat. Take, instead, a close look at his eyes while he is batting. They speak of a calmness almost bordering on serenity, and a combination of composure and resolve. You could see it in his comeback innings in Johannesburg that fetched him an unbeaten 51 and you could see it through his epic innings in Bangalore that marked a new high in his career. In his bowling, and on the field, we have seen the more familiar Ganguly; excitable, emotional, even fiery. He has appealed cantankerously, celebrated his wickets and catches with child-like gusto. His batting hasn't lacked his natural flair - in fact, he has been batting with greater freedom than he did in the period leading up to his temporary banishment - but the most noticeable feature about his batting is his poise. It hasn't left him even when he has been occasionally cornered in an awkward position by a short ball. He has let himself go only once: it was an emotional moment, getting to his first hundred before his adoring home fans. His celebration after he got to his first double-hundred, a landmark he sought and will cherish, was far more subdued. There was the raising of the arms and the acknowledgment of applause from his team-mates and the crowd. But then there was a series of little pumps of the fist, and waving of the helmet. Those were for himself - there was an air of fulfillment, of a man celebrating privately in public. But his quiet smile touched a million hearts; his struggle to regain his place, and some would say his honour, has been one of most stirring and uplifting stories in cricket. Let's get done with the numbers first. Incredibly for a man who was given up for dead, 2007 has been his most successful year statistically. Potentially there are three innings left still, and he has already scored 932 runs at 62.13. His most prolific year to date has been 2002, when he managed 945 runs - but it took him 16 Tests. Put together, 2005 and 2006 yielded him only 422 runs from 11 Tests at 28.13, and that included a painstaking hundred against a hopeless Zimbabwean bowling attack. The manner of his removal, first from captaincy and then from the team, continues to rankle with his supporters, and surely with him. But it is undeniable that from that low has emerged this high. It was perhaps a bit disingenuous for Greg Chappell to claim credit for Ganguly's revival, but in the cold light of the day, the exile, the sheer indignation of it, made the revival possible, and ultimately far more poignant. The credit for it must go entirely to Ganguly, for few rational observers would have seen it coming. It wasn't just that the runs had dried up; his skills and responses seemed to have deserted him, and he bore the look of a haunted man, tortured as much by the deficiencies of his technique as by a lack of confidence. He owes his return to a change in the selection committee, but the rest of the story is about a man who simply refused to surrender to what seemed inevitable to most. Much can be said about his improved footwork and the decisiveness of his stroke-making, but in the end, it been a triumph of spirit, of incredible strength of mind and absolute self-belief. Remarkably, in a batting line-up featuring Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid, Ganguly has been India's best batsman since his return. Not merely for consistency and the number of runs scored, but for the assuredness of the manner in which he has made them. His half-century in his return Test at Johannesburg, though subdued and a bit laboured, helped India to what ultimately turned out to be a match-winning first-innings total in a low-scoring Test. And in the decisive Test in Cape Town, only he looked fluent and in control in that fateful second innings; his dismissal induced a crawl that proved terminal. In England he produced a series of vital contributions, and none better than a 79 on a challenging pitch in the second Test at Trent Bridge. Apart from Zaheer Khan's inspired swing bowling, my warmest memory from that match is of Ganguly's square-driving. Michael Vaughan set an off-side trap, with four men between cover and gully, and Ganguly teased and mocked him by caressing, punching and guiding the ball repeatedly through that cordon: one to the right of point, then one to his left, then a couple between the two gullys. He was denied a hundred by a wrong decision, and his response to that dismissal told a story. In an earlier time he would have left kicking and stomping; here he did so with an ironic, rueful smile. The protest was registered but without causing offence. Admittedly his hundreds in the current series have come against feeble opponents. The pitch at Kolkata offered nothing to the bowlers, and Shoaib Akhtar was drained by illness. But at Bangalore he was not so much up against the bowlers as the match situation. He provided the calm and cushion for Yuvraj Singh to flow at the other end without ever sacrificing his own strokes. Personally, my favourite Ganguly innings of the series is a small but vital one. It came during the run-chase in the final innings of the first Test. Shoaib had just cleaned up Dravid with a ripper; India had over a hundred runs to get; and Tendulkar was finding non-existent demons in the pitch. In this banana-skin situation, typical to India, Ganguly, who had fallen to Shoaib cheaply in the first innings, set about cutting down the target nervelessly, with deliciously timed fours against Shoaib, Mohammed Sami and Danish Kaneria. The toughest challenge lies ahead. Australia will come hard at him, and the pitches will test his skills. But he is living out a fairytale at the moment, and nothing he achieves will be a surprise anymore. There are many, me included, who believed Ganguly's time as an international cricketer was over. We owe him an apology and a salute. Sambit Bal is the editor of Cricinfo © Cricinfo

[Dhondy]

Why are you quoting that man here, Sriram? Note how little technical stuff he writes. Complete put off.

[Dravid]

highest score for a lefty for india:two_thumbs_up::eyedance: passed kambliiii

[Ram]

Why are you quoting that man here, Sriram? Note how little technical stuff he writes. Complete put off.

He isnt the best at cricinfo, but Doc I felt this article captured Ganguly's comeback quite well. Doc, why dont you do a piece on Ganguly ? I am sure it will make for riveting reading. Few people can capture the essence of what he has achieved in the last year , as well as you, IMO.

[SachDan]

He isnt the best at cricinfo, but Doc I felt this article captured Ganguly's comeback quite well. Doc, why dont you do a piece on Ganguly ? I am sure it will make for riveting reading. Few people can capture the essence of what he has achieved in the last year , as well as you, IMO.

Sri, you have changed ur avatar very quickly..is it bcoz the sentiments againt Dravid to be dropped gaining momentum very quickly in this forum?:haha:

[Predator_05]

Cricinfo's writers are crap. Especially Sambit Bal, a guy who trashed Ganguly for years. What a flip-flopper, not to mention an average columnist. I could write better than most of those mugs. They wouldn't have even have half as much as traffic if it weren't for the statsguru, the almanack and the live commentary.