BOMBAY, 8 July 2005 — Even as the new coach Greg Chappell is making the 35 probables for the Indian team sweat at Bangalore by undergoing the kind of regimen they have never gone through before, the top brass of the Board of Control for Cricket in India are trying their level best to have the six-match ban on Saurav Ganguly overturned.
The Indian skipper was banned after he was found guilty of violating section J-5 (iii) of the ICC Code of Conduct that deals with slow over-rates, during the fourth India-Pakistan tie at Ahmedabad.
Ganguly had to sit out the last two of the six-match series, and this was followed by an appeal to the ICC challenging the ban initially imposed by match referee Chris Broad.
The appeal by the BCCI, who appointed two leading lawyers to represent them before the ICC, was turned down after a specially-appointed official had gone through all the evidence and arguments. The BCCI, and more particularly its former president Jagmohan Dalmiya, not being satisfied by the outcome, pursued the matter at two successive ICC meetings. Last week the issue was once again raised with Ehsan Mani in the chair. Mani, a good friend of Dalmiya, in order not to be rude, had said “let us see what can be done.” Quick to act on this “promise” the BCCI has now written a fresh letter of review on the ban. BCCI bosses have categorically sought further arbitration on Ganguly’s ban from one-dayers, which now stands on four matches.
It is up to the game’s supreme authority to decide whether the six-match ODI ban on the Indian skipper Saurav Ganguly eventually stays.
All this shows to what desperate straits that the BCCI has gone just for the sake of one player, the blue-eyed boy of Bengal and Indian cricket. As it is, Ganguly was in the midst of a wretched batting form, unable to get even one good innings. There was a general cry for his omission from the team when so many more deserving players were sitting on the bench. In fact when the ban came, several critics echoed “Good riddance.”
Now, for the third time, the BCCI is making a move to get the ban lifted even though it knows that all provisions of the Code of Conduct had been adhered to. The ICC officials, however, said that they would not make a formal announcement on their stance whether an arbitrator can in fact be appointed.
Interestingly, if the BCCI can convince the world body to designate a separate review of the rules on over-rates, then it will eventually throw open options for beleaguered South African skipper Graeme Smith as well, who is also serving a four-match ODI ban due to slow over-rates.
It may be recalled that a similar one-Test ban was imposed on Pakistan captain Inzamam-ul-Haq and he had to sit out the first Test against the West Indies. Graeme Smith is already out for four matches. When neither the Pakistan nor the South Af4rican Boards have taken up the cases of their captains, one fails to understand why the BCCI should consider the ban on Ganguly as their most important issue for the last three months.
Actually, if the ban has to be finally served, in which case Ganguly will miss the tri-series in Sri Lanka, he is worried that this long absence and his ongoing poor form might eventually end his career. What has put extra fear in him is a statement of coach Greg Chappell “We should first select the team and then the captain.” In other words, he believes that the captain must first justify his place in the team.
