Sourav Ganguly deserves much better respect than this. To be dropped from the third test is very unfair for a batsman of his caliber. On top of this, the selectors choosing Wasim Jaffer in place of him does not make any sense whatsoever. With all due respects to Jaffer, you never replace a middle-order batsman (Ganguly) with an opening batsman (Jaffer).
Ganguly's performance in the Delhi test was not bad by any standards. In both is innings of 40 and 39, he showed his experience, maturity and class. He was involved in the highest partnerships of both innings, with Tendulkar in the first and with Yuvraj Singh in the second. These partnerships gave the Indian batting the stability it required to win the test.
Its the dirty politics the board (BCCI) is playing. A Bengali has gone out (Dalmia) so remove a Bengali (Ganguly). A Mumbaikar is elected (Sharad Pawar) so select a Mumbaikar (Jaffar). Even though this selection does not make any sense, I guess we have nothing to do but make our point of view.

Often I have heard people comparing Gavaskar vs Tendulkar. This had become more as Tendulkar was chasing the 35th test century to surpass Gavaskar’s record. I feel that it is not fair to comparison. It feels as if letting Gavaskar's standard down. Gavaskar had faced the best bowling attack during the time he scored his 10122 runs. There were the invincible West Indian bowling attack, spearheaded by Marshall, Garner, Holding and on the other side of the world there were the likes of Thompson, Willes, Truman, Botham, Lillee, Hadlee, Imran. To score those runs against that formidable bowling attack is indeed exemplary. To be fair on Tendulkar, he too has faced a good bowing of McGrath, Warne, Murli but the main differentiating factor is that, wherever Gavaskar went he had a world class bowler to face.
Tendulkar is good but he is more of a liability than an asset. I would rather have Lara in my team than Tendulkar. Or if I get to choose my team after I have won the toss, then Tendulkar would come in easily. Tendulkar cannot bat under pressure. He will be on my team only if I (as a captain) decide to bat first.
Tendulkar has always played for his personal satisfaction and fame, rather than focusing on the team requirements. Of course his scores have been part of team's total runs but I never got the feeling that he held the importance of teams score higher than his personal score. This is evident from the fact that when the then stand-in captain Dravid declared when Tendulkar was batting on 194 he was frustrated but never made it public as the public had criticized enough. Even though India won the test, that test was more importantly know as the one where Tendulkar as not allowed to score six runs. Gavaskar held the 34 centuries world record for 22 years, I will wait and watch how long Tendulkar’s record will last.

Our precious one is here to make our moment dear. After 13 hours of a very strenuous labour my wife, Anupama, gave birth to a baby boy on 22nd November 2005 at 6:53 am. We have named him Aadi.
He is definitely big for a new born as he weighed over 8 pounds. No wonder why my petite wife had to undergo the pain of bearing the big one.

Aadi means the beginning or the first one. Searching for the name also had been a sweet little exercise for us. There have been fights and quarrels just to get to the name Aadi. Fifteen days on Aadi’s routine is just eat-sleep-eat-sleep-shit-eat-sleep-eat-sleep-shit…..

The weight of the baby drops soon after he/she is born and later the baby picks up weight. Aadi weighed 3750 grams at brith. 4 days later while leaving the hospital he dropped to 3540 grams and now he is 3800 grams and growing.

Aadi was 11 days over due. The due date was 11th November 2005 and because Anupama’s hemoglobin count was very low at 8.4 (normal is 11.5 to 16) and 10 days on no regular contractions were occurring, she was advised to go on induced labour. Induced labour is more painful than normal labour and with the help of epidural we thought that it would have been okay. But there were other surprises in store for us. When Anu went on labour, around 1700 on 21st November, there were several other mothers who went on labour around that time. So there was a midwife crisis. All midwives were busy and Anu got the attention of the midwife around 2130 after suffering the initial pains for over 4 hours. This was the time when more pain was on its way. The midwife refused to give her the epidural as it required a midwife to be present all the time with her. Because all midwives were busy, she was administered pethadine. Pethadine is a pain killer that makes the pain tolerable. But believe me it was still as bad.

Finally all is well that ends well. I am now enjoying the joys for fatherhood. The sleepless nights are not as bad I thought it would be. I know for sure now that the greatest pleasure in the world is to have your baby sleep in your arms. All your tiredness disappears instantly when you see your child sleep peacefully.