How to make the maggi better...

In the recent times there has been a barrage of criticism against Ganguly for his poor form, the most popular one being the Maggi joke, where the maggi is supposed to be cooked by the time he returns to the pavillion. I was a strong voice in favor of these critics, forwarding this endlessly to my friend who is a die-hard fan of Ganguly (for his cricket and his looks!!:)).

Considering that this set of criticism included a Hindu editorial (which I respect to quite an extent except when they write on "communal" parties and "secular" front) on why he should be removed from the captaincy and why we should set the Australian standards of "each person plays for his place in the team" formula, I was pretty much biased against our captain.

Well, I happened to read one more email coming out strongly in favor of our captain and hence had to rethink. The most interesting argument of the article is this-"When players like Sehwag, Harbhajan and even Dravid were struggling with their form early on during Ganguly's captaincy, he supported them and included them match after match, until they started performing. Now why can't we extend the same courtesy to Ganguly?" Makes sense, right?

Secondly, why I think the Australian model works in Australia is because they have an abundance of international talent-mark my words here-"international" talent-I am not talking about rookies who have played on placid wickets in front of a small crowd (mostly including their parents and family). I am referring here to a rigorous county cricket and professional cricketing academies where kids are taught to bowl at the age of 7 or 8!! Where they can afford to have two distinct teams-one for tests and one for the one dayers. Our guys have come from the "gullys" so to say (and that ofcourse makes them more robust).

More importantly our Indian work-culture is more Japanese so-to-say;we don't hire and fire, we trust and build great teams on that foundation. I really appreciate Ganguly in this respect. I can recall that people were out for Laxman's blood and Dravid's head at different times, if he had let them go, we wouldn't have had the feast at Culcutta (follow-on followed by win) .

It is time to let the captain know that he can play his natural game and take his time while the team will stand behind him. I hope each team-member would come out to him and give him that confidence, boy...he is severely in need of that. All it takes is one dazzling innings, doesn't it? Lets give atleast that for the captain with the best overseas record, who has been the martinet patriarch of the team for so long now.

P.S: I might have gotten some facts wrong here as stats has never been my forte. People, feel free to correct.