This absence of a plan makes us go round and round, it creates the illusion of movement but doesn’t take us too far. I am sure that, like Dravid, Sourav Ganguly has no idea of what the plan for him is either. If the perception is that Ganguly and Dravid are not pulling their weight in the side then a polite conversation and a firm decision is the way ahead.

But in order to determine whether they are, in fact, not worth a place in the side anymore we must see enough, we must know enough. With Dravid we do not know if this is a bad patch or the beginning of the end in one-day cricket.

All good teams back their players when they are down. It is easy to back a man when he is scoring runs, the strength of a unit is seen when it rallies around someone who isn’t. Indian cricket needed to back Dravid, to give him confidence.

I know of a couple of teams and managers where in a quiet meeting, the struggling lead player would be guaranteed the next five games as a show of strength. But implicit in that guarantee would be a reassessment at the end of the five games. All good teams give their best players the best possible chance of success till such time as they are convinced that he can no longer succeed. They don’t fool around with them with a couple of games here and one more there for it helps nobody.

... contd.