Team rallies behind Ganguly

Ashish Shukla

The demand for Sourav Ganguly's head is steadily increasing with every failure of the Indian skipper but the team is solidly standing by him.

After Ganguly was dismissed for just two in Sunday's triangular one-day series match against Zimbabwe, Melbourne Radio rang up team manager Chetan Chauhan to know why the stylish left-hander should not be asked to sit out and sort out his batting blues rather than be a liability to the team.

"I have a lot of time for him," was Chauhan's cryptic reply which put an end to the issue.

A desperate Ganguly also sought to draw solace from his opening partner Sachin Tendulkar's clean chit to his batting technique.

"He (Tendulkar) has assured me that my technique is okay and I should not worry on that count," the skipper said, while putting up a brave face amidst continued failures.

"I know the runs would come shortly. I can feel it from inside," said Ganguly, who has led India to five wins in eight Tests.

But that has not prevented the critics from raising the shrill over his inability to get the runs. The website of the company telecasting the series is flooded with hate mails for Ganguly and questions on his form and captaincy are appearing on the ballot boxes of various other sites.

The pressure is telling on the captain, who is not leaving any stone unturned in his efforts to get back to his scoring ways. He is having an extra session in the nets and is usually on the ground an hour before the team arrives for practice.

This, from a man who usually does not like to bat much at the nets.

"I do not quite like batting in the nets but if that is the answer (to my bad form), so be it," he said.

In the matches too, he has tried various methods to break the shell. He briefly toyed with the idea of going on the attack to shrug off his poor form but discarded it quickly after it failed to click, and he did not want to be seen as an irresponsible batsman.

He did not duck his responsibility even when he had to face the new ball on the crucial fourth morning of the Harare Test though it ended in an yet another failure.

But its not the efforts but the figures alongside his name on the scoreboard that count and Ganguly needs to get that as quickly as possible to silence his critics.

In Sunday's match, he took two wickets while bowling and thought that finally his time with the bat too might have arrived. Alas, that did not happen and Ganguly had to be satisfied with his bowling contribution only.

His deputy Rahul Dravid answered his detractors in style when he scored a brilliant 181 in that epic match-winning association with V V S Laxman in the second Test against Australia in Calcutta, and Ganguly knows he will have to come up with a similar effort to turn his fortunes around.

But till that happens, his - and his fans' - agonies will continue to haunt him.

Mail Cricket Editor