Ganguly best, but no place in Rest

Sourav Ganguly's omission from the Rest of India squad for the Irani Trophy match against Ranji Trophy champions Delhi could well signal the end of the left-hander's international career.

A poor outing with the bat in the three-Test series in Sri Lanka saw the selectors lose patience with the left-hander. However, question marks still remain over their decision to persist with Rahul Dravid VVS Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar , who also did not live up to expectations.

Ganguly's axing could well signal the start of the process of the selectors trying to ease out the Fab Four from the Indian Test team.

Interestingly, Ganguly's run-aggregate since his comeback in December 2006, is the highest by any Indian batsman in Test matches during this period, whereas his run-aggregate in ODIs since his comeback is the fifth highest by any Indian batsman after Mahendra Singh Dhoni (1,884 runs in 58 matches @ 49.57), Tendulkar (1824 in 43 @ 46.76), Yuvraj Singh (1,763 in 55 @ 38.32) and Gautam Gambhir (1,578 in 44 @ 41.52).

Rajneesh Gupta presents a statistical analysis of the four senior batsmen:

Fab Four's Test record:

	Mts	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Avg	SR	100	50
S Tendulkar	150	244	25	11877	248*	54.23	54.13	39	49
R Dravid	125	216	26	10246	270	53.92	41.93	25	52
S Ganguly	109	180	15	6888	239	41.74	51.36	15	34
VVS Laxman	96	158	21	6000	281	43.79	49.15	12	35

Fab Four's ODI record:

	Mts	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Avg	SR	100	50
S Tendulkar	417	407	38	16361	186*	44.33	85.49	42	89
S Ganguly	311	300	23	11363	183	41.02	73.70	22	72
R Dravid	333	308	40	10585	153	39.49	71.22	12	81
VVS Laxman	86	83	7	2338	131	30.76	71.23	6	10

Fab Four's Test record since Ganguly's comeback in Dec 2006:

	Mts	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Avg	SR	100	50
S Ganguly	21	40	3	1667	239	45.05	61.51	3	9
S Tendulkar	18	33	3	1408	154*	46.93	55.67	4	8
VVS Laxman	19	34	7	1302	112*	48.22	49.48	2	10
R Dravid	21	40	4	1197	129	33.25	39.75	2	6

Fab Four's ODI record since Ganguly's comeback in Dec 2006:

	Mts	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Avg	SR	100	50
S Tendulkar	43	42	3	1824	117*	46.76	85.51	2	15
S Ganguly	30	28	2	1120	98	43.07	71.93	0	11
R Dravid	31	27	5	823	92*	37.40	82.05	0	8
VVS Laxman	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-