Niranjan Shah walked into the press box on Friday afternoon to announce the Indian team for the next two one-dayers of the Future Cup and the T20 match against Australia in Mumbai.
Someone asked him how Ganguly was. He had been expected to play against Australia here on Friday. But he was not in the team. The media assumed it was because the former Indian captain had not yet recovered from the hamstring injury he suffered in Bangalore. Hence the question about the state of his fitness to Shah.
Shah's answer? “He is fine, but he has been dropped from this game.”
When you walk in the Amazon jungle, be careful what you step on. When you walk in the press box, be careful what you say. Shah, as BCCI secretary should have avoided using the d-word, which gave some journalists just the sensationalistic story they were looking for.
It was left to captain MS Dhoni to clear the confusion.
“Sourav was very eager to play but we thought that in case there is a problem during the match, we would be short by one batsman, which would be a big blow,”Dhoni said. “So we decided to rest him for another match and hopefully he will fit by the next match.”
{{/usCountry}}“Sourav was very eager to play but we thought that in case there is a problem during the match, we would be short by one batsman, which would be a big blow,”Dhoni said. “So we decided to rest him for another match and hopefully he will fit by the next match.”
{{/usCountry}}The message for Shah is clear: Check your facts and avoid using extreme terms unless you are 100 per cent certain it's true.