Sourav Ganguly's omission from the Rest of India squad for the Irani Trophy match against Ranji Trophy champions Delhi could well signal the end of the left-hander's international career.
A poor outing with the bat in the three-Test series in Sri Lanka saw the selectors lose patience with the left-hander. However, question marks still remain over their decision to persist with Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar, who also did not live up to expectations.
Ganguly's axing could well signal the start of the process of the selectors trying to ease out the Fab Four from the Indian Test team.
Interestingly, Ganguly's run-aggregate since his comeback in December 2006, is the highest by any Indian batsman in Test matches during this period, whereas his run-aggregate in ODIs since his comeback is the fifth highest by any Indian batsman after Mahendra Singh Dhoni (1,884 runs in 58 matches @ 49.57), Tendulkar (1824 in 43 @ 46.76), Yuvraj Singh (1,763 in 55 @ 38.32) and Gautam Gambhir (1,578 in 44 @ 41.52).
Rajneesh Gupta presents a statistical analysis of the four senior batsmen:
Fab Four's Test record:
| Mts | Inns | NO | Runs | HS | Avg | SR | 100 | 50 | |
| S Tendulkar | 150 | 244 | 25 | 11877 | 248* | 54.23 | 54.13 | 39 | 49 |
| R Dravid | 125 | 216 | 26 | 10246 | 270 | 53.92 | 41.93 | 25 | 52 |
| S Ganguly | 109 | 180 | 15 | 6888 | 239 | 41.74 | 51.36 | 15 | 34 |
| VVS Laxman | 96 | 158 | 21 | 6000 | 281 | 43.79 | 49.15 | 12 | 35 |
Fab Four's ODI record:
| Mts | Inns | NO | Runs | HS | Avg | SR | 100 | 50 | |
| S Tendulkar | 417 | 407 | 38 | 16361 | 186* | 44.33 | 85.49 | 42 | 89 |
| S Ganguly | 311 | 300 | 23 | 11363 | 183 | 41.02 | 73.70 | 22 | 72 |
| R Dravid | 333 | 308 | 40 | 10585 | 153 | 39.49 | 71.22 | 12 | 81 |
| VVS Laxman | 86 | 83 | 7 | 2338 | 131 | 30.76 | 71.23 | 6 | 10 |
Fab Four's Test record since Ganguly's comeback in Dec 2006:
| Mts | Inns | NO | Runs | HS | Avg | SR | 100 | 50 | |
| S Ganguly | 21 | 40 | 3 | 1667 | 239 | 45.05 | 61.51 | 3 | 9 |
| S Tendulkar | 18 | 33 | 3 | 1408 | 154* | 46.93 | 55.67 | 4 | 8 |
| VVS Laxman | 19 | 34 | 7 | 1302 | 112* | 48.22 | 49.48 | 2 | 10 |
| R Dravid | 21 | 40 | 4 | 1197 | 129 | 33.25 | 39.75 | 2 | 6 |
Fab Four's ODI record since Ganguly's comeback in Dec 2006:
| Mts | Inns | NO | Runs | HS | Avg | SR | 100 | 50 | |
| S Tendulkar | 43 | 42 | 3 | 1824 | 117* | 46.76 | 85.51 | 2 | 15 |
| S Ganguly | 30 | 28 | 2 | 1120 | 98 | 43.07 | 71.93 | 0 | 11 |
| R Dravid | 31 | 27 | 5 | 823 | 92* | 37.40 | 82.05 | 0 | 8 |
| VVS Laxman | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - | - |
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