Guru Greg questioned Ganguly's fitness, both mental and physical, performance, attitude and finally his place in the playing eleven. The tussle started where Ganguly was the clear loser. He was dropped from the one–day side for the Sri Lanka series. Then he was included into the team touring Pakistan in early 2006. But, he was dropped again when England visited India in late 2006. The end of Ganguly was on the cards, with the then chairman of the selection committee Kiran More saying, “There is no looking back for us. The question of Ganguly is over.”
But, as they say, destiny matters! And, it mattered once again for Ganguly with all flying colours. BCCI got a new selection committee in place with colonel of Indian cricket Dilip Vengsarkar as the chairman, who declared that performance and not anything else would be the basis of team selection. The result- Ganguly in for the tour of South Africa, where he returned as the top scorer. Since then, though the Indian cricket has gone under tremendous change with the change of captains and new experiments coming into being but what has not changed is Ganguly's score-line, his man of match and man of the series awards. The latest one is just another feather in the cap of the Prince of Kolkata.
Sourav Ganguly was fond of saying, “You win some, you lose some. It’s part of the game.” This “part of the game” made him lose so much... his captaincy, his prestige and finally his place in the team itself. Sourav's ground shook just after the Pakistan series. His graph started climbing down, the lady luck started stopped smiling at him. Incidentally, the hole was created by the same team, which had given him the opportunity to rise. The damage began in 2004 when the Australians toured India. The team performed below par in the entire series. However, the real destruction began when Ganguly pulled out of the Nagpur Test match stating his injury problems. But most believe that it was not his injury that forced him to sit out, rather a fast and green pitch angered him so much that he decided to take on the cricket board itself by sitting out of the test match. India lost the series 2-1.
