Ganguly: Born to play till the day he calls it himself

After a poor performance in 2005 coinciding with a semi-public spat with former coach, Greg Chappel, Ganguly was really struggling for form. After that it was really a see-saw till the start of 2006. A gritty 30 in early 2006 against Pakistan in a low-scoring test was not enough for him to retain his place in the Indian team. It seemed like the beginning of the end of a great player. Most of India were asking and anticipating for his retirement. A poor run with Nottingham seemed like the end of him. But he waited and waited until the knock on the door came. A poor performance by the Indian team in the ODIs against South Africa forced the selectors to give him an another chance. He came back like a hungry phoenix and pounced on his prey of the South African attack and eventually ended up as the highest run-scorer in that series. He then capped his fairy-tale comeback with some menacing performance in the ODI's leading to the World Cup. Suddenly his selection to the World Cup was a certainty. His performance in the World Cup was nothing to write home about. He scored fifties in his first two innings but in the crunch game against Sri Lanka he failed like many others. Now Dada, the Bengal tiger is still going strong and he will keep playing until he calls it a day by himself.

Twenty20 World Cup Squads

Australia: Ricky Ponting (captain), Nathan Bracken, Stuart Clark, Michael Clarke, Adam Gilchrist, Brad Haddin, Matthew Hayden, Brad Hodge, Bradley Hogg, Michael Hussey, Mitchell Johnson, Brett Lee, Andrew Symonds, Shaun Tait, Shane Watson.

Bangladesh: Mohammad Ashraful (captain), Aftab Ahmed, Nadif Chowdhury, Shakib Hasan, Tamim Iqbal, Alok Kopali, Mashrafe Mortaza, Mushfiqur Rahim, Ziaur Rahman, Syed Rasel, Abdur Razzak, Farhad Reza, Zunaed Siddique, Nazim Uddin, Mahmud Ullah.

England: Paul Collingwood (captain), Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Andrew Flintoff, James Kirtley, Darren Maddy, Kevin Pietersen, Matt Prior, Chris Schofield, Owais Shah, Ryan Sidebottom, Jeremy Snape, Vikram Solanki, Chris Tremlett, Luke Wright.

India: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Ajit Agarkar, Piyush Chawla, Gautam Gambhir, Dinesh Karthik, Irfan Pathan, Yusuf Pathan, Virender Sehwag, Joginder Sharma, Harbhajan Singh, Rohit Sharma, RP Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Shanthakumaran Sreesanth, Robin Uthappa.

Kenya: Steve Tikolo (captain), Rajesh Bhudiya, Jimmy Kamande, Tanmay Mishra, Lameck Ngoche, Nehemiah Ngoche, Alex Obanda, Collins Obuya, David Obuya, Thomas Odoyo, Peter Ongondo, Elijah Otieno, Morris Ouma, Ondik Suji, Hiren Varaiya.

New Zealand: Daniel Vettori (captain), Shane Bond, Peter Fulton, Mark Gillespie, Gareth Hopkins, Chris Martin, Craig McMillan, Brendon McCullum, Nathan McCullum, Jacob Oram, Jeetan Patel, Bradley Scott, Scott Styris, Ross Taylor, Lou Vincent.

Pakistan: Shoaib Malik (captain), Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Akhtar, Kamran Akmal, Fawad Alam, Yasir Arafat, Mohammad Asif, Salman Butt, Umar Gul, Mohammad Hafeez, Misbah-ul-Haq, Rao Iftikhar, Younis Khan, Imran Nazir, Abdul Rehman.

Scotland: Ryan Watson (captain), Fraser Watts, Dougie Brown, John Blain, Gavin Hamilton, Navdeep Poonia, Gregor Maiden, Neil McCallum, Qasim Sheikh, Colin Smith, Craig Wright, Dewald Nel, Gordon Drummond, Ross Lyons, Majid Haq.

South Africa: Graeme Smith (captain), Gulam Bodi, Loots Bosman, Mark Boucher, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Herschelle Gibbs, Justin Kemp, Albie Morkel, Morne Morkel, Makhaya Ntini, Vernon Philander, Shaun Pollock, Thandi Tshabalala, Johan van der Wath.

Sri Lanka: Mahela Jayawardena (captain), Dilhara Fernando, Hasantha Fernando, Kaushal Lokuarachchi, Sanath Jayasuriya, Farveez Maharoof, Lasith Malinga, Jehan Mubarak, Muttiah Muralidaran, Kumara Sangakkara, Chamara Silva, Upul Tharanga, Dilshan Tilakarathne, Chaminda Vaas, Gayan Wijekoon.

West Indies: Ramnaresh Sarwan (captain), Dwayne Bravo, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Pedro Collins, Narsingh Deonarine, Fidel Edwards, Chris Gayle, Runako Morton, Daren Powell, Denesh Ramdin, Ravi Rampaul, Darren Sammy, Marlon Samuels, Devon Smith, Dwayne Smith.

Zimbabwe: Prosper Utseya (captain), Gary Brent, Chamunorwa Chibhabha, Elton Chigumbura, Keith Dabengwa, Tymsen Maruma, Hamilton Masakadza, Stuart Matsikinyeri, Johnson Marumisa, Christopher Mpofu, Tawanda Mupariwa, Vusimusi Sibanda, Tatenda Taibu, Brendon Taylor, Shaun Williams.

Twenty20 World Cup "India"

India

The Indian team will be without the big three, Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dravid as well as start bowler Zaheer Khan and as a result most people are writing them of for the World Cup. I think this is a big mistake. As you all know twenty20 cricket is a very fast, trill-a-minute game suited for the younger generation and the big three could be as big a liability as an asset. There are a lot of young and fairly new faces like Yusaf Pathan, Rohit Sharma and Joginder Sharma; it will be anybodies guess how these three perform. India's opening pair, I think should be Rohit Sharma and Robin Uttappa with Uttappa to face. One down should be the pinch hitter Yusaf Pathan and two down should be Sehwag. The middle order should be made up of Dhoni, Karthik and Yuvraj. The tail should be Agarkar, Chawla, Sreesanth and RP Singh. Karthik should definitely keep wickets allowing Dhoni to captain freely. Yusaf was chosen to pinch so he should and he should also bowl his quota of four overs. The pitches have been made shorter for the world cup and scores of 150+ should be very achievable. The only problem I see is the inexperience in the team. Why was not a coach chosen before such an important event. The senior players must step up and take responsibility and help the first-time captain Dhoni. Dhoni will be consulting form a lot of players like Sehwag and Yuvraj and even Agarkar. I think in the batting department the presence of Kartik will be very important like the presence of Sreesanth being important in the bowling department. Kartik is a very talented player and a fierce competitor. He is also a gusty performer and captain material. He is a very consistent player and will be the team anchor in case they get into trouble. Sreesanth on the other hand is a very talented aggressive bowler who needs to be groomed but on his day he is as good as it gets. He will be Dhoni's talisman and should lead the bowling attack. He will be fine as long as he does not go over-board. If all this goes well then the Indian team will get a very different reception home to the World cup in West Indies last April.