India's most successful Test captain ever, Saurav, fondly called ???Dada???, has announced his retirement from the game. He was controversially included in the four-test series against Australia and more controversially dropped from the Irani Trophy.

It seems that there is a lot of politics behind his decision to quit. Probably, he was asked to quit in exchange for his inclusion in the test team during this series - so he can have an honourable exit rather than a forced one, albeit prompted by wrong reasons. However, we should take note of the fact that Ganguly had a glorious career - spanning over 12 years and 109 tests and scoring 6,888 runs at an average of 41.74 that included 15 centuries.


He started his international career in January 1992 with an ODI match against West Indies. But he failed to deliver on debut, being out for three. Eventually he found himself out of the team for the next four years at the end of which he was called up for the test squad for the England tour in 1996. He started his test career with a hundred at Lord’s and it marked the start of a new chapter in Indian cricket. The Bengali southpaw took over as captain in February 2000 when Indian cricket had been marred by match-fixing fiasco.

Most of the former cricketers welcomed his decision saying it was right for Ganguly to go out on a high note. “It is a big decision for any cricketer. But we should not be saddened by it,” said Kapil Dev, the former Indian skipper.


India needs to build a team for the 2011 World Cup. It also has to progressively build a good test team by utilising the services of some newcomers so the team does not crumble when the seniors retire suddenly. The Indian team should make way for newcomers so they can get better exposure to test cricket. Apparently, Saurav took all these into consideration and took the wise decision so that the team-building exercise can start.