India Culture, Business, Sports and Food. Get all the buzz in India now

Announcement Ganguly left everyone surprised on Tuesday when he announced in a press meeting that he will retire after the coming Australia-India four test-match series. Though there were rumors that coming test series will be his last series but nobody had believed them. But with his announcement it has become clear that coming tests will be the last test matches of a spectacular career. Earlier some cricket annalists had suggested that Ganguly’s inclusion into the test squad is an opportunity provided by selections board to retire gracefully. But Ganguly has denied these speculations. But he admitted that he had not hoped that he will be selected in the national team for the coming test series. It must be learnt that he had not been selected even for the Irani Trophy.

Seniors According to recent media reports five senior player are under pressure and selection committee has asked them to plan their retirement by the December end. But Senior players have denied any kind of such suggestion. But Ganguly’s announcement has proved that the rumor has some truth in it. Ganguly has said that he already had planned to get retired two weeks ago when he had been ignored for the Irani Trophy series.

Captaincy Though he has not performed well in some of the recent series but his overall average is very good . He Is considered to be India’s most successful test captain. Under his captaincy Indian team was totally transformed.  Under his leadership India had won 21 out of 49 test matches and had reached the final of 2003 world cup. He has the credit of nurturing the career of many young players. He is considered to be India’s most aggressive captain.

Career As far as his career is concerned he is one of those Indian players who have played more than 100 tests and 300 hundred ODIs. He has scored more than 10,000 runs including 22 centuries in One Day Internationals. His, along with Tendulker was considered to be world’s most destructive opening pair. One of the interesting factor is that his test average has always remained above 40%. Though under his captaincy India’s performance at foreign soils improved a lot but his performance continued to deteriorate. His performance in 2003 world cup is considered to be the highest point of his career. After that his performance continued to deteriorate and in 2006 he was dropped from the national team. He staged an impressive comeback in December 2006 but he could not perform constantly.