VENGSARKAR, I was a great fan of yours. I thought you were one of the better administrators that the game had seen. I was actually pretty upset with the way you treated Sourav Ganguly - by dropping him for the Irani Tropy match. But then I ignored it in the light of all the other good deeds you had done – I dismissed it as one bad call on your part.

But now that you have responded to Ganguly’s criticism of the selection committee and declared that you will give him "more than what he asked for" at the end of India’s series against Australia, I have also decided to challenge you. You better have a good explanation ready.

Dropping Ganguly was so bad a decision that even Gavaskar was forced to come off his high horse and make a statement in favour of Dada. Your waiting for the series to get over so there is no discord in the team while the matches are on, is nothing but a cheap trick to buy yourself some time. You can have all the time in the world but when you do give Ganguly "more than what he asked for" just make sure you stick to cricket-related stuff and nothing else. Please ensure that you define objectively the yardstick and timeline applied for assessing his performance. Remember to justify the inclusion of the other members of the ‘Fab Four’ based on the same yardstick and timeline. And that goes for Sachin Tendulkar as well. And if you can’t do that, then you are as bad as a placard-carrying member of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena.

Also don’t resort to the tactic of sending a letter to Manohar or the de-facto BCCI President (Pawar), explaining your actions; or doing what Sreesanth and Harbhajan did – “that it is our personal matter and we have had a private discussion and sorted things out”. I can totally trust the BCCI to do a cover-up job like that. BCCI will wait for the dust to settle down, offer you and Ganguly a carrot each and ask both of you to just shut up. And the matter will be swept under the carpet.

So let me tell you this: this is not a personal matter. This is about Indian cricket and cricket fans need to know what you have to say in your defence. So please don’t fall for the carrot. Call for a press conference whenever you are ready. And then give Ganguly "more than what he asked for" in front of the whole world in very objective terms. If you can’t do that then you’d better apologise. Either way, we are all waiting.