Ganguly won't go down quietly

Memories are all too often short, as can be seen as India plan for the Test series against Australia.

It came as no surprise though how Irani Trophy selection policy has largely been influenced by an evaluation of the 2-1 Test loss in Sri Lanka.

Not only has the form guide been scrutinised with top players found to be out of sync, one answer, throwing experience overboard, creates doubts in the thinking of top players. This is what comes from the danger of peering too long at the imagined ghostly images still hunting the corners of India's dressing room.

It is where mind games become a dangerous occupation and administrators who have not held a bat or bowled a ball at first-class level are allowed to express views yet fail to understand the implications of such foolhardy policy of jettisoning quality.

Also questioning a coach's comments over the captaincy issue shows just how well they read the careful manner in which Gary Kirsten made his remarks. Headlines are taken at face value without studying the content of what is written.

Anyway, as Sourav Ganguly, for one, again contemplates his future and the selectors mull over their options in a search for answers, forgotten in the rush to find one or more scapegoat for the Test series defeat, is how India's game plan was lured into a spinner's web by a pair of cunning bowlers.

What the selectors need to do is examine how they can work on a recovery programme and strategy after the Test series failure, and how the players are likely to handle it in the wake of the highly destructive and effective Sri Lanka M-Factor of Ajantha Mendis and Muttiah Muralitharan.