Okay the Indian Cricket board is a circus. There are no two ways about it. If years of neglecting domestic cricket made me feel dismayed earlier - the current fiasco puts what a pathetic mess the Indian board is more on my face than ever before.

It is clear Dalmiya backs Ganguly. He does not get sacked. It is also clear Chappell being sacked would mean financial loss to the board (he is not foolish enough to sign the coach’s contract without financial security). So what do they do? They retain both people who have serious differences to try and put the Indian team forward. How can they sort the problems of the team when they cannot sort their own problem and divide the team rather than unite them? Why would the board care. The Dalmiya faction wants to stay at the helm while the Pawar faction is tyring to achieve the same objective.

Harbhajan Singh is being asked to summon before the Punjab Cricket Association. I doubt if the Punjab Cricket Associaiton is not opposed to the Dalmiya faction.

On a more humorous note from across the border - Inzamam who refused to go for the super series earlier sighting it would effect his preparation for the series vs England (actual reason being he did not want to be 12th man”), now says he will play in the match for his country after Tendulkar has opted out.

Now Harbhajan has spoken in favour of Ganguly.

This is the point where I think problem is bound to become bigger.

Ganguly said team mates should shut up yesterday. I do not support the statement as its the players who will have to deal with the issue the most.

First Ganguly came out in the media. Then Tendulkar made a remark in the media that whatever happens in the dressing room should remain there. Now Bhajji comes out in the media.

Speak with the BCCI and state your stands. Dont be out of it as Ganguly said. Be in it. But please dont go to the media and make it a bigger circus.

Please.

Also Sambit Bal earlier and Sidhu today (On NDTV Programme Cricket Controversies) remarked on how the BCCI is more responsible than any one and has their own vested interests for leaking the matter (The Dalmiya faction).

I am not an expert into the founding principles of the BCCI but I feel now there should be a serious enquiry into its structure and the current structure should be dissolved - with Indian cricket starting anew.

Lokendra Pratap Sahi puts all the blame on Chappell and gives a clean chit to Ganguly. Little surprise there. What is even less surprising is that he has raised no apparent objectivity of his on the out burst of Ganguly to the media.

On the from page of the same newspaper, By the same Mr. Sahi, Chappell is compared to Fergusson and it is stated that:

It’s a fight, essentially, to occupy the one Big Boss chair in the Team India dressing room.

Also Ganguly is painted as a rose boy waiting till meeting BCCI officials before telling all. Really again I ask, why did Ganguly open his mouth initially in Zimbabwe if he was so goody-goody.

The article goes on:

The e-mail was sent after the first Test (Bulawayo) which is why Chappell didn’t nail Sourav for lack of form. He scored a hundred there.

Frankly, the coach’s accusations don’t exactly add up.

Really Mr. Sahi, it would be better if you stuck to journalism rather than making speculations.

My answer to the question asked by fellow Indian fan Arjun here.

There is a lot of stuff Indian cricket needs. The thing is if the National team is in such a state and the board election process is such a mess one can imagine how the Indian cricket really is over all.

There are so many associations and each one has its own share of mess no one knows about.

Indian cricket is a reflection of the politics of the country at large in fact.

The domestic matches give no money so neglect them. The poor do not have any money so they do not have much of a say like wise as they cannot bribe the officials. Thankfully the poor can still cast their vote in India - Indian cricket fans are thus in a worse state in this regard.

The latest comments from Ganguly are irritating to say the least. Ganguly tries to draw the lines the crisis should be embroiled in by saying:

I don’t think the entire team should be dragged into this

This comes a two days after Tendulkar’s statement that it was wrong on Ganguly’s part that dressing room matters were told to the press. Why should team members not have a right to comment on an issue as important as the decision of a captain and a coach when their own captain has not been responsible enough to deal with a matter with the BCCI rather than make a media circus of it? Who is Ganguly to say team members should not drag themselves into it if they want to.

Also Ganguly remarks:

It was some statement made by the coach. It is between the coach and me and we have to sort it out.

Sorry but it was a statement made by you Mr. Ganguly which spilled the milk. The statement of Chappell was his opinion told in private to you. If you had qualms with his opinion you should have dealt with it in a better way. If you really felt it was to be sorted out between you and the coach, you should not have gone to the media in the first place.

It is important that the team does well regardless of whoever leads it or coaches it. The team is more important than individuals. We need to play good, hard cricket as we will be facing very good teams. We will be playing Sri Lanka at home, then tour Pakistan and play England at home before going to the West Indies. It is going to be tough and we need to get our act together.

Really are all these things required to be said. I doubt if its not a way of Ganguly trying to show he is very much a team man. Really shows his insecurity.

Add to all this, Sambit Bal gives a perspective on the timing of things. The timing of the remark made by Ganguly a few days before the AGM of the BCCI where Dalmiya faction was likely to lose. The leaking of the coach’s e-mail diverting the attention from the adjourning of the AGM.

All this leading to a Ganguly supporting Dalmiya faction organising an urgent meeting on the 27th of September to sort things out.

I watched more than six hours of good tennis live at the Sunfeast Open. I wanted to comment on the Uberoi sisters, Sprem and Myskina. The current scheme of things in Indian cricket had to clog my mind regretfully.

I said some months ago, before I started this blog, that Ganguly should have retired from tests after the series win in Pakistan. The guy had achieved what no other Indian captain had - defeating Pakistan in Pakistan. It could not get better than that. It indeed went a lot worse. Ganguly has done his legacy no good and its really sad on the scheme of things currently.

I would like Ganguly to play in the Indian one day squad come world cup 2007. Why? Because it would be good for the team to have a player with his agression and his one day match talent in the squad. If it was a perfect world where back room groupisms and comments to the media of what happens in the dressing room were not made public, I doubt despite the bad form of Ganguly if he would denied a 2007 world cup place. Right now there is legitimate doubt.

The question every one is asking is will this episode harm Indian cricket. Is this a depressing turn of events in Indian cricket. It is depressing. But if you look at the results from the post India’s tour of Pakistan, nothing has gone right for Indian cricket.

India has lost almost every series, tournament. So this is the nadir. This is as low as it gets. Things can only improve from here and the firm stance of Chappell, a person known for having his own mind always, I believe can indeed be a catalyst.

This incident brings a ray of light to Indian cricket again and is not some thing which will harm it.

Away from the dirty mess surrounding Indian cricket at the moment, a visit to the Sunfeast Open in the evening provided me some much needed reminder as to why I love sport so much.

I managed to catch the last game of the Shikha Uberoi-Myskina quarter final. Uberoi did well to win 4 games in the first set. It is a tier 3 WTA tournament but Uberoi has the potential to reach top 100 at least. Two Indian women playing in grand slams regularly will be nice.

The Likhotseva match was much closer. The oponent broke back in the second set only to lose it 7-5 in the end. Myskina is looking much stronger and is likely to win the tournament.

Tomorrow Sania Mirza and Pascual pair up in the women’s semis to face Likhotseva-Myskina pairing. Also their is another Indian doubles pair in the other womens semi final doubles. Plus the two singles featuring Myskina and Likhotseva. They are favourites to reach the finals but who can say in sport.

I am going to watch all the action over the weekend.

South Africa, the best one day team 1996-99 and second best test team for a large part of the last decade has gone down quite a lot. The most important in this regard was the home series loss to England. South Africa’s main problem right now is their bowlers. Can a strong attack capable of taking 20 wickets vs any team any where consitently be formed?

It is much tougher to get that combination for subcontinent but they are even struggling for matches other than the sub continent to make that bowling attack which has been a major problem thus far. Remarks Graeme Smith:

Our main concern has been our fast bowling which we are in the process of building. Twenty wickets these days is what wins Test matches for you. Obviously we needed to get things right within the team to move forward in the right direction. But at the end of the day without a bowling attack you going to struggle but with Makhaya [Ntini], Shaun [Pollock] and other youngsters we were building a good fast bowling attack. We have got young fast guys coming through with Andre Nel, Dale Steyn, Monde Zondeki and Jacques (Kallis) coming back. All these guys are capable of taking 20 wickets in a Test. That probably was, in my first two years in the captaincy, an issue - backup for Makhaya and Polly.

More excerpts from the interview here.

Tendulkar has opted out of the Super Series. Very disappointing. I was hoping he would be ready for the Super Series to mark his grand come back to international cricket.

It is concerning an issue of this was not made earlier. Whoever’s fault it is for not making it an issue - the ICC, the ECB or BCCI’s or all of them. Players are humans and they should feel secured while playing.

That said, Indian crowds are not hooligans which such incidents potray them to be. Among thousands of spectators these are just few people who give every one a bad name.

I am surprised and disappointed Flintoff has to mention such an incident now, if even in his book. I do not have a problem with players saying the truth or what they feel of incidents honestly in their books. But such opinions and books revealing stuff should be written after retirement.

An issue was not made then. With it being talked about now, the case is of one person’s word against another. Chauhan and people not accepting it to be true. Creates unnecessary controversy before an England tour of India looked forward by every one.