I don't want to write any comment on your view. Just think whom you want to select in your team? First a player who won or has some record in past and who is in total failure situation in current session and series, or a young talent who want a place in your team to prove his talent. Laxman lost his form and we have already given him chance to prove himself but he failed, please refer his overall record. and that's why we need young talent at the place of laxman and even at ganguly.
A Waste Batsman, who comes to form once in a while and plays a big innings, which cud hold him for next 5 years (fortunately, hez in india otherwise his place was out long back) !!
Laxman is awesome. Dravid promoted him to one down just last year and tendu and lax won us the match on the spinning track in mumbai! Dravid said you have to support quality on his promotion of Lax up the order. Laxman is breathtaking to watch and when on song he can overshadow any batsman. Even tendulkar! He has such incredible beauty and makes batting an aesthetic expression. And this ain't ancient history!! He had a bad season last year, still won us a few matches. That hardly means he is old news. Stop dissing on him. If appreciating great talent is biased then so be it. But then again, there are such incredible people out there, who think Tendu is a spent force! Here is to an awesome season for Lax and Tendu and let India turn around and kick some butt this season..starting with the srilankans!
Laxman's performance in the last Australian test series in India is totally ignored.
31, 3,4, DNB, 13, 2, 1.
The author ignores bowling effort in all test matches won. Bhajju's heroic efforts, Agarkar in Australia won it for us. For decades we could boast of batting prowess but never won in tests because we didn't have bowlers who could take 20 wickets in 2 innings and hence we remained a losing side.
Surprising why a nation of cricket crazed individuals can't figure that out.
"Form is temporary, Class is permanent" ! Laxman has the class and if Ganguly and even Yuvraj can make it to the Test team then Laxman is far ahead of them both in technique and style. He should be among the top three choices for India along with Tendulkar and Dravid. Undoubtedly, fast tracks and deadly bowling brings the best out of him and on his day he is a pleasure to watch and dictates the bowling. VVS deserves the due respect and faith from the selectors and he can again be back among the top run-scorers of the season.
Using the SAME logic - let's retain Sunil Gavaskar for his 13-14 double-hundreds against the West Indies, Hirwani for his 12-13 wickets in Bombay against the WI, Kirmani (God knows we NEED a good wicket-keeper) for all his keeping skills, Bedi/Pras/Chandra/Venkat, to assist Bhajji, etc., etc.,etc.
The point is, a few amazing innings in a whole long while does not guarantee a spot in the team. You are a paid professional, representing your country, AND holding up a spot from a promising youngster. You HAVE to find consistency of some sort.
Unfortunately, the fact is that this is the norm in Indian cricket. There are several spots in the team that are considered "filled up". Simple qualification for these spots: "Don't you remember that amazing innings 5 years back when he demolished that other team? Man, what an innings that was"!!!
Srinivas correctly pointed all of the strengths and successes of VVS with good supporting data.Thus I agree with him that VVS should be in the final eleven. When Ganguly gets to play for India with as many as 3-4 consecutive years of intermittent successes why not VVS with some intermittent failures(very simple logic)in past few years. Nippani Rao(Charlotte,NC)
