A Common Fan’s Sports Diary

Dear Mr. Vengsarkar,

What is the plan?

When are you planning to give Sourav Ganguly ‘more than he asked for’? You were originally planning to do so after the India-Australia series got over, so that there was no undue discord in the team. Thank you so much for that. Because of your noble act, we managed to avoid the discord and win the series. But the series got over on the 10th of November. Today is the 28th. By now, Sourav Ganguly would have got his provident fund and gratuity money also from the board. But he is yet to get what you were supposed to give.

What is keeping you so long? After all you made the announcement on the 10th of October and it’s been almost 50 days since. Are you working on a literary masterpiece for him? The likes of Gulu Ezekiel would have completed two different versions of Sourav Ganguly’s autobiography by now. We don’t need your elaborate prose. Just give us a simple explanation. You can do that in Marathi in case you have suddenly forgotten all your English and your Hindi.

Dada has every right to give Vengsarkar a taste of his bat

I am not too surprised that Mr. Manohar and Mr. Pawar have conveniently forgotten to remind you. I had anticipated that. And I wasn’t expecting anything from our lousy media.

I am wondering what has happened to the others – the pundits – the likes of Sunny Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri, Harsha Bhogle and Ayaz Memon – the so-called expert voices. Have they all suddenly got a sore throat? Are they really fair and unbiased?

Forget about giving us a good explanation. I don’t think you have even a bad one.

I think it’s pointless to wait any more – because you never had a case in the first place. You were simply out on a slandering mission, taking a chance on Dada failing in the Australia series.

I hope this cowardly act becomes your lasting legacy and people keep asking you for an explanation for the rest of your life.

Actually, it would be better if your name could be added as a phrase to the English lexicon and be associated  with doing such an act. So whenever, someone makes a false and baseless accusation against an individual, it should be called doing a Vengsarkar.

Wish you the very best for your future career as a card carrying star campaigner of the Maharashtra Navnirman Seva

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