For which senior should the bell toll?

The argument over who should get the axe first, Ganguly or Dravid, is becoming like the chicken-and-egg question. So I decided to put some figures to it for the sake of objectivity.

I looked at the last three series, involving 10 Test matches, which I believe is more than what is required to judge a player's current form and fitness, and even more so because they were played in three different sets of conditions - Australia, India and Sri Lanka - against three worthy opponents - Australia, South Africa, and Sri Lanka.

The exercise was prompted by the question I posed in my last column titled 'Why Dhoni is a better captain than Kumble'. I had questioned Kumble's team selection for the series in Lanka, with four middle-aged batsmen in the middle order, and speculated that his reluctance to drop his Bangalore mate Dravid was getting in the way of doing the right thing.

"What could he do? Ditch his struggling friend Rahul Dravid? Or drop Sourav Ganguly ahead of Dravid and try to justify that? As it turned out, he opted for status quo and defeat with an unchanged 'muddle order'."

Well, now apparently he's belled the cat, if the exclusion of Ganguly from the Rest of India side for the Irani Cup means he will not be picked for the Test series at home against the Aussies next month. One can safely presume that the selectors have taken Kumble into confidence in preparing for the series, and the dropping of Ganguly is the first visble move.

My own feeling, having watched all three series, was that both Ganguly and Dravid no longer deserved their places in the Test side, which should go to two younger batsmen. My picks for the Aussie series would have been Rohit Sharma for Rahul Dravid and Suresh Raina for Sourav Ganguly.

Now for the figures to put an objective underpinning to those feelings. It's uncanny, but Ganguly and Dravid have had almost identically dismal records in the last 10 Test matches. Dravid averages 31 and Ganguly 30.

Dravid played only one innings of note during this entire period - his 93 in the first innings at Perth where India had a famous victory. Ganguly too has only played one knock of any consequence - his 87 in the second innings at Kanpur to set up the series-levelling win against the South Africans.

A closer look adds to the uncanny similarity in their performances. Dravid had only three other scores above 50, none of which were of any use to the team. He got a fifty in Sydney where we lost, a grinding century in Chennai where he should have stepped on the gas to put some pressure on the South Africans with Sehwag's triple century, and another fifty in a lost cause in Sri Lanka.

Ganguly too had three scores above 50 apart from his match-winning 87. Two of them were in the Sydney Test, and the third was in the second innings at Ahmedabad where the South Africans were beating us easily anyway.

Think of the figures for a moment. Four knocks of above fifty out of 19 appearances each in 10 Test matches. That is, four out of five times they've failed in varying degrees in varying conditions, both easy and difficult. That's a very strong case for both of them to be dropped.

Or else, retain both of them. But to drop one of the two and retain the other would be a travesty. It would also be illogical. What can be the justification for that?

The argument that India doesn't want to get too light in experience against the formidable Aussies doesn't wash. We would still have the super-experienced Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman. And don't forget Virender Sehwag.

The conclusion is inescapable therefore that Kumble would like to hold on to friend Dravid, and doesn't mind giving Ganguly  the boot, which is not the best way to get set for an important series. The irony is that when Dravid was captain, he left Kumble out of the playing eleven in the One-Day World Cup in the West Indies.

Of course, that's another thing Dravid has in common with Ganguly, who likewise kept Kumble on the bench in the final of the previous World Cup in South Africa.

The point is that the selection of the team should be based on some objective criteria, and not personal equations.

Objectively speaking, Ganguly and Dravid are not Test-worthy on current form and fitness. And if past glory is to be the criterion for selection, then there are others who can stake a claim too - why not recall Sunny Gavaskar?

Tendulkar and Laxman, both averaging 39 in the last three series, should also be on the watch list. Tendulkar has had 15 stints at the crease in this period, and only two knocks made any difference to the team's cause in all that time - his 71 in Perth, and the 154 in the first innings at Adelaide where India managed to hold out for a draw in the end thanks to Sehwag. But in all this talk of batsmen, we're perhaps overlooking the prime candidate for an axing. Anil Kumble himself.

He has averaged 42 runs a wicket, well above what is acceptable at the Test level, in the last three series. And Test matches are won by bowlers. So is it any wonder that India has lost two of the last three series and drawn the other?

The bell should really toll for Kumble, before anyone else. In any case, he can hardly have the moral right to end anybody else's career.

c_sumit@dnaindia.net