I closely following all the discussions, letters and all the chat on cricket. I really don't understand why people are wasting so much time on cricket. Watching cricket is another thing, but wasting so much time on chat, letters, discussion is, as per my thinking, nonsense.

I know that cricket is religion, breath of every Indian. I also watch cricket matches. Computer is easily accesible for me , so I read the cricket articles in rediff. But recently I found that the discussions , chat and letters are increasing in multifold.

I know this is the business of rediff, Prem and Faisal. Therefore promoting chats and discussions is not wrong on their part. But my question is for those people who are wasting their time indulging these nonsense and time wasting things. Do you really think , they are useful for you ?

I was also doing the same thing in past, but I realized that I am wasting time because whatever my opinion , my feelings , it is not going to impact anything. Just due to chat and discussing the cricket , we are not going to control it. So if nothing is going to change , why should we waste time on that.

Watching cricket gives us some pleasure, but this chat , discussion , what it gives ? How it is going to change anything ?

So please don't take this letter as ' letter by some oversmart person' . But please really think on it and reduce your time on these things and spend this time on some meaningful things which would help yourself and help building the nation.

Rahul Gokhale

Prem Panicker responds: Since this is addressed to readers, I'll let it go outside off. One point, though - Rediff has managed to survive, for close to seven years now, without us spending time reading and responding to reader mail. We do that, because we reckon half the fun of cricket lies in these debates and discussions - but hey, whatever rocks your boat.

Forget Bangladesh and focus on the other cricket teams in the sub continent. I wonder whether you guys have pondered over a common thread among the three teams on their tours:

Sri Lanka in Australia
India in New Zealand
Pakistan in South Africa
Sri Lankan coach is an Aussie, the Indian coach is from New Zealand and the Pakistani coach is from South Africa.

Even after you tell your mind that coaches are professionals, the parallel fortunes of the touring sides makes one go "Hmmm ..."

Ciao, Sudarshana

PS: Prem, I remember one of your nice pieces on Rediff (or was it by someone else) that chided the BCCI on vacillating and waiting until the last minute before renewing John Wright's contract, but I am not accusing you of bias of any sort (I just wrote the above because of what I believe to be legitimately food for thought).

Prem Panicker responds: Fair enough, Sudarshana. Then again, I seem to recall that Sri Lanka won a World Cup under the same foreign coach they have now; I recall too that India never won a single Test abroad with our indigenous coaches for a good 15 years, that it was the same New Zealander who was coaching the side when it won the NatWest Trophy and shared the Champions' Trophy, et cetera. Rather a reach, to imagine that an Aussie, a Kiwi and a Springbok are conspiring to undermine sub continental teams, na? J

For all the readers who feel Saurav Ganguly does not deserve to be captain of the Indian test team, they should compare his record against other India captains. Let us not compare him to Steve Waugh. It is like comparing Mahesh Bhupathi with Andre Agassi, apples with oranges...

To objectively evaluate Ganguly's record, here are some recent statistics on his performance as India Captain and Batsman:

First,let us compare Ganguly's test captaincy record against former India captains -Pataudi,Gavaskar ,Kapil, Wadekar, Bedi,Venkat, Azhar,etc

Sourav has won 13 tests out of 29 tests captained for India(with 5 test wins abroad).This record is way above all the previous captains of India. The next best record was of Azhar who won 14 tests out of 42 captained with only 1 win abroad.The others records are not even worth mentioning, they are way behind in terms of test wins...

Ganguly also is the only captain who could defeat Steve Waugh's all-time 'Great' team.The series was won at home but nevertheless must rank as one of the best Indian victories in the recent past, as we had to fight tooth and nail to win against the mentally tough Aussies, under their best captain ever. We also should not forget that he achieved this incredible victory with a very young,inexperienced team at his disposal .And yes, he has led from the front on numerous occasions e.g at Kandy he scored 98 n.o. in the 2nd innings and ensured that the Indian victory did not slip away. In the lone victory at West Indies earlier this year, he calmed the nerves of the Indian side when wickets were tumbling to score 74 in the second innings and along with VVS Laxman ensured our victory. Even during the test match victory against England, he scored a century to ensure the team's victory. It really does not matter if the other seniors also played well, since cricket is a team game. Yes, he also has failed at times, but no one claims he is super human.

Let us now look at his recent performance purely as a Test batsman .Well, he narrowly missed making 1000 test runs for the calendar year 2002( I think he made around 950 runs this year , if my memory serves me correctly).Overall he has scored 4100 runs (9 centuries Batting avg 40.5) in tests .It may not be a Bradmanesque record, but it is definitely quite good, by Indian standards.

As a ODI captain,Ganguly has taken India to ICC cup finals twice (both times abroad), since taking over in 2000. India also won the Natwest series in England recently under immense pressure.As far as his batting record of One Day Internationals are concerned he has consistently been among the top scorers in the world for last 3 years and made 8211 runs(19 centuries Batting avg 43.5) in ODIs . And yes ,he has also taken 79 wicket in ODIs as a bowler, and winning a few matches himself , purely as a bowler.( All these statistics are from the Cricinfo website)

I will make another bold statement about Ganguly here that I think no one has pointed out before.This statement is based purely on objective facts/statistics, that I have collected and analyzed myself for the benefit of rediff readers . Here is my conclusion about Ganguly as a batsman.

"Based purely on his batting accomplishments/records, SAURAV GANGULY is certainly the BEST Indian left-handed batsman, India has EVER produced ".

A quick look at his overall batting record over the last 6 years will show that no other Indian left-hander has scored runs or centuries anywhere close to his record accomplishments. Closest in Tests is Wadekar who scored 2113 runs with just 1 century. In ODIs, Ganguly is ranked among the top 10 ODI batsmen in the world in the 2002 Price Waterhouse Coopers Ratings. In case any of you guys disagree , I will be delighted to get the statistics of any other Indian left-handers, with a better batting record (of course at the International or Test level).

As a captain,if guys still want to question Ganguly's record , I can only ask them to consult unbiased cricket experts like Steve Waugh, Clive Lloyd , Sunil Gavaskar or Viv Richards who all have publicly stated in the recent past that the 'Prince of Calcutta' is the most suitable man for Indian Captaincy. Let us not confuse average journalists to be cricket experts. I think I can analyze cricket better than many of them(of course I wont include my long-time friend Prem in this list!)

Lastly let us stop blaming Ganguly whenever India fails and try to support him at least till the World Cup 2003. Dravid and Tendulkar are supporting Ganguly fully, so why cant the Indian fans do likewise.

I am waiting to see the day when the Indian journalist eventually give Ganguly his fair share of credit as a batsman and as a captain. They have always underestimated him, but so far Ganguly has always had the last laugh!

--Pushpak Sarkar

Prem Panicker responds: Again, I'll let this one go outside off, since it is addressed to the readers, and not a query for me. I must say, though, that I am rather delighted to be included in your list of long-time friends, Pushpak - last time you wrote in, if I remember right, it was to suggest that I had no business writing on cricket, on Rediff -- an opinion another reader then backed very vehemently. Best wishes for the new year just dawning, friend.

I would like to say a point that if Indians are treated with pitches like this abroad and are severely reprimanded for not playing well, shouldn't we bring a rule giving the authority of pitches to the ICC if we can. This way, we can avoid this kind of thrashing both from the New Zealand bowlers and the stupid media who constantly seem to be at the Indian team's neck. If ICC gets the authority of pitches, they can prepare neutral wickets which play sportingly and not doctored ones. And regarding SS Das in the first ODI, I think he was kept because why send a player unnecessarily to NZ just for one match and keep him in the sidelines for the remaining matches? We can delay the flight of a test player to be sent home, make him play a game as a cover for the injured players and then take a later flight back home. Since the team was picked before, trying out a player just for a match by sending him from India to New Zealand is ridiculous.

--Saisushma

Prem Panicker responds: I'm not sure the ICC is concerned too much about whether the Indian team gets a thrashing or no, but jokes aside, there has been for quite a while a call for the ICC - especially since it now runs a World Championship of Test cricket - to lay down some norms and introduce certain standards for pitches worldwide. As for Das, maybe you have accomplished the seemingly impossible and read the selectors' collective mind - but it does occur to me that Sanjay Bangar in particular was injured after the Test series, which I doubt even our prescient selectors could have foreseen.

I am very disappointed with the selection procedures for our ODI team. It is very sure that people like Laxman and Kumble are going to be in the team for the World Cup to S.A. Our selection folks who are second grade cricketers (and also a few Senior cricketers of the present team) just go by the reputation.

An excellent example is Murali Kartik vs. Anil Kumble. Everyone knows that Murali is better bowler than Kumble and by far better fielder and batsman than Kumble. When Kumble is in the team we try to hide him in the field and you can forget of any contribution from his bat too. I have never admired his bowling as he is nowhere as a classy leg break bowler excpet in the pitches in India. His overseas record is of little to speak.

In spite of some good showing by Murali Kartik during domestic ODI series against West Indies, he was called back from New Zealand ODI series and replaced by Kumble. This is a clear message that he is not going to make it to the World Cup in S.A. I am a diehard India cricket fan and want our team to make at least reach a Semi-Final stage in South Africa. But we lose half of our battle during the selection process.

Same is true for Laxman. One should forget his past of making 283 against Australia in Test Cricket. He is an inept runner between the wickets, very inconsistent with the bat and dropping catches in the field. I pray to the god that they give some professional thinking into the minds of selectors to choose a best 15 based on the ODI requirements, conditions in South Africa and consistency and not taking into account the past reputation and experience.

Your comments Sir.

--Alok Agrawal

Prem Panicker responds: Selecting teams on the basis of form and ability, as opposed to past records, has been a constant theme ever since we started this feature - what more can we say? As far as Karthik is concerned, that lad is going to go down as one of the tragedies of Indian cricket - why on earth, after a good series at home against the West Indies, he was brought all the way to New Zealand, not played, and packed off home again I will never know. Or rather, I can take a pretty shrewd guess, but then again I guess anyone who has been following Indian cricket can, too.

Is there any reason why we are not seeing many pics of India NZ series in the media? Are wires not covering the series?

There are tons of photos on Aus/Eng, SA/Pak series everywhere but India/NZ photos seem hard to come by. (BBC publishes 6-8 photos though)

Any reason?

--Ganesh

Prem Panicker responds: We have a contract with Allsport, who recently signed up as official photographers for all cricket being played under the ICC's aegis. For various technical reasons, they haven't been providing too many pix out of NZ, but here on in, we should be able to bring you photographs from anyplace the Indian team tours. Meanwhile, our apologies.

A very simple poser for you and all the readers: As I understand it, under the world cup contract with the ICC, the BCCI is required to send its best available team - the keywords here are "best" and "available". The word "best" is open to interpretation; "availability" is something that can be manipulated easily. Therefore, if some of our "best" players find the contract unpalatable, and make themselves "unavailable" for the world cup for "personal reasons", I dont see how the ICC can legally hold the BCCI accountable for the unavailability of these player(s). The consequences and the merits/demerits of such a course of action are altogether different matters.

--Ravi R. Iyer

Prem Panicker responds: Oh sure, the big legal loophole in this whole thing is "available" - if the Indian players contract a sudden rash of hamstring trouble (and there's a lot of it going around these days, I'm told), there really is little the ICC can do about it. The "best" is not really all that open to interpretation, since you have the records of players who have played for the country these past few years and it would stretch credibility for selectors to suddenly pull out 11 players out of the Ranji hat and say these are our best - but the other is definitely a possibility.

I dont think it is an issue of who played how well and who is to be blamed. The point of focus should now be whether our team is getting the right exposure and practice in preparation for the world cup. I think both India and Newzealand have suffered at the hands of some rather dumb groundsmen and administrators. The cricket so far has been innocuous and devoid of interest. What kind of test match are we viewing where a result is found in less than 500 cumulative runs over 4 innings. What kind of a one day are we made to watch where a result is found in less than 250 cumulative runs and 17 wickets in 60 overs. The NZ board should be ashamed of themselves for exhibiting such narrow thinking. Maybe thats one reason why NZ isnt a force in the cricketing world and unfortunately we are stuck with them just before the world cup.

--Baba Handa

Prem Panicker responds: That bit, about it hurting our preparations, is the really unfortunate part of this tour so far. Firstly, I'd much rather have seen them play just the ODIs, and postpone the Test series to after the WC, when we could have played a good three-Test series in better conditions (by all accounts, cricket this time began in NZ at least three weeks ahead of schedule). I'm not so sure about NZ not being a force in world cricket - but on this occasion, there seems to have been a right mess up.