A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

Dear Mr Dilip Vengsarkar

I was a huge fan of yours. I thought you were one of the better administrators that we had in the game. 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 light of all the other good work that you did – I dismissed it as one bad call on your part.

But now that you have responded to Sourav 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 throw you a challenge.

You better have a good explanation for this

Coz dropping Sourav Ganguly was so bad that even Mr Gavaskar was forced to come down from his high horse and make a statement in favour of Dada.

Your waiting for the series to get over so that 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 Sourav Ganguly “more than what he asked for” just make sure you stick to the cricket –related stuff and nothing else. Please care to define your yardstick and timeline for performance objectively. And 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 card-carrying member of the Maharashtra Navnirman Seva.

Also don’t resort to the tactic of sending a letter to Mr Manohar or to the de-facto BCCI president (Mr Pawar) and 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. They will wait for the matter to cool 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 take the carrot and call for a press conference whenever you are ready. And then give Sourav 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 apologize. Either ways we are all waiting