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I’m not sure how many of you already heard this, but few news channels (NDTV) have aired this afternoon that Sourav signed up with Sky Sports and will be assuming the new role  as  Sky Sports commentator/Analyst for India vs England, 7 Match ODI series and 2 Match Test Series starting Nov 14th.

I’m not yet all surprised he signed up with sports channel as I knew he would get into commentary  rather than analyst on news channel and I wish him all success. But I’m surprised that he is not willing to take break after what he has gone through in last three years of struggle and fight to get back into team.

I just hope this news is true so that I can watch Sourav Ganguly commentate along with Naseer Hussain and Michael Atherton whom sourav had rubbed on wrong side in the past and I think Sourav and Naseer pair will be much more fun to listen.  Also news channels/website/print media must be happy as there are good chances that Sourav may make controversial statements while on job and they can increase their numbers.

Welcome back guys after a long break, much deserved one for the players who have been playing continuously and the fans who follow every match to support their team. We have continuous cricket for next few months and we will have a thread here to share the links and for discussion for most of the matches like we always do. We have two matches today (Apart from ICL)  between India and Australia and Bangladesh and New Zealand, we may not have links for the Ban vs NZ match but I’m sure we will have links for India vs Australia match.

In next few hours BCCI’s newly appointed selection committee will announce the list of cricket players who will be part of 1st two test matches against Australia and I don’t think they will change the selection for the rest of the series as well.

Earlier Ganguly had bit of backing from Vengsarkar (Former chief selector) , but with Kris Srikkanth assuming role of new chief selector I don’t think Ganguly will have that support.

Below is my list of probables (Will add the official team as soon as it is out) - Only 12 Players

Gautam Gambhir, Virender Sehwag, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, VVS Laxman, Subramanyam Badrinath/Suresh Raina, Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, R.P Singh.

Team is out and surprisingly Ganguly in.

Officially Announced Team:

Anil Kumble (capt), Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, VVS Laxman, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Munaf Patel, RP Singh, S Badrinath,  Amit Mishra

By now everyone knows, Michael Vaughan has stepped down as England’s Captain after successfully delivering positive results in that prestigious position of leading international team for almost over 5 years. Actually it’s a bit of shocking news for me with Ashes on it’s way but his performance recently has been below average and it’s a well known secret that cricket boards and cricket fans don’t bother about captain’s performance as long as their side is winning but once the team loses captain has to take all the blame and if captain has poor performance record in recent times,  it will obviously lead to these kind of decisions. So I’m not sure if I’m surprised or not but I knew Vaughan will quit soon but I thought it would be after important Ashes series. With Ashes few matches away(Around 9, starting July 2009) , that decision of Michael Vaughan  will add only extra pressure to the next captain.

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