Give us more, Kiran

By John Cheeran
Chief selector Kiran More has put Sourav Ganguly's captaincy record straight.
Not a ball was bowled in Chennai on Tuesday but More bowled a yorker at theGanguly Gang. The message is loud and clear. Rahul Dravid is the new captain of India. For Tests. For One-dayers.
Hear it. Ganguly was sacked. There is no comeback for Maharaj as Indian captain now. Much had been made about Sourav Ganguly's leadership skills by media, former players, Jagmohan Dalmiya, Ranbir Singh Mahendra and Arjuna Ranatunga.
More, to his everlasting credit, has showed immense courage to rise above partisanship, above his Ganguly-backing colleagues. He sensed the mood of cricketing India to thwart the plot against Dravid.
As selection committee -- with four known Ganguly sympathisers -- met in Chennai, Ganguly's backers had not ruled out the possibility of Maharaj returning to his 'rightful place' as captain.
I'm not privy to what happened inside the selection committee meeting. I hopesomeone will leak the proceedings and let us know.
But More's words' have come as a dampener to those irrational believers in Ganguly.
Let me quote More. "We are looking ahead to the future and I must say Rahul isgoing to be our future captain."
More did not stop there. "Sourav has not performed that well. We do acknowledgethat he scored a century against Zimbabwe. But we are not very happy with his performance during the last two to three years."
Yes....So chief selector Kiran More says Ganguly's performance in the last three years was not encouraging.
Thank you for telling us that truth. But we all knew his performance was far from the best. We also knew that powerful backers, within the selection committee and within in the cricket control board propped up Ganguly every time he was in danger of losing captaincy and his place in the side.
I'm not paying More. But he said: “In contrast, Dravid had performed well. He won matches against Pakistan and Australia as stand-in captain (in Tests). Winning matches against Zimbabwe should not be the criteria. We should be winning our matches and series against teams like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh. The fact is that we have not won a series on foreign soil in 19 years. Looking at the overall performance of Sourav, we are not happy."
There was a minority in the media who were ready to believe that Ganguly would lose Indian captaincy. But none would have bargained for the kind of plain-speak More indulged in. Ganguly's Gang would have expected More at least to extol the virtues of Maharaj, to say what a great captain Ganguly has been.
He has refused to pay tributes to Maharaj. So with only one selection committee meeting left to preside, More has gone bold. One should also remember that it was only Kiran More who brought to light the Abhijit Kale bribery incident.
If anyone thinks that Ganguly's spat with coach Greg Chappell had played a role in Maharaj losing the captaincy, they are mistaken. "We did not discuss the issue. We discussed only cricketing matters."
Finally verdict is out.. Ganguly is not fit to lead India.
Give us more, Kiran.