How they broke it to Sourav, Dravid
Ganguly was calm and did not want to get into any controversy. "He did not have much choice in any case," said a selector.
On Sunday night, selection committee chairman Kiran More apparently called Sourav Ganguly up in Glamorgan and had a long chat. He wanted to know what Ganguly was thinking, about the team, about the captaincy and about his own form. He also wanted to inform him about the committee's plan to name Rahul Dravid skipper for the forthcoming tri-series.
Ganguly, by all accounts, was calm and did not want to get into any controversy. "He did not have much choice in any case," said a selector. "But more importantly, he said he did not know where things stood at the moment (on the Sachs case)."
Ganguly reportedly also said the selectors should go ahead and do what is best for the team and country. He said he would not have any problem playing under Dravid, if it came to that. And he was concentrating on getting his batting into shape.
Sources say that the call was made after endless phone calls between members of the committee and the BCCI. They had to figure out an answer to the question that had kept the country in a state of high suspense for nearly a week. Would Sourav Ganguly be named skipper despite the ban?
In the run-up to the call, apparently, the selectors had more or less decided that Dravid would be skipper, unless there were orders to the contrary from the Board. By Sunday evening, they had also agreed that Ganguly, if cleared, should play under Dravid, more for keeping with the team's continuity than anything else.
"He has been captain of India. It was only fair that he be informed of the plan and also asked about what he felt," said a selector.
Dravid himself was reportedly informed at a two-hour meeting with More on Monday, before the selection committee formally met to decide the team. He was told that they believed it unfair to him to keep him in suspense and to ask him to step in and fill in vacancies every now and then.