There are few things in life that I hate beyond all others, right now I can remember two

that make my blood boil every time a stray thought ventures near the glial walls of my brain. One is Honour killing if hypocrisy could ever be defined in two words these would be it, the other is the chatter about putting away Sachin Tendulkar. Here are a few random stats for you :-

Ripped right off Cricinfo- These figures talk of all Indian batsmen with more than 100 test runs after 1st July 2011.

Post Gangulys Retirement (stats after 11th Nov 2008) *HeadDesk* *HeadDesk**HeadDesk* *HeadDesk* I get tired of making the same arguments again and again. It has been more than 4 years since Sourav Ganguly retired, and the Indian team has shuffled around trying to find a reliable player to fill his shoes for all this time without much success, Yuvraj is a 40 test match veteran with little credit to his name, Raina would be lucky to get a test cap any time soon, and Kohli and Pujara are just coming into their own, anyone who thinks they have done well up till now should take a moment to remember that Suresh Raina scored a century on debut against Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, it is even funnier now that I have sat down to do the numbers over 15% of his career aggregate came in his first innings alone.

In fact of all the post-Ganguly debutantes, R Ashwin is probably the one who has looked the most impressive :P (woohoo). The geography of the Indian team is changing very rapidly, the next time the Aussies visit India they would take a little comfort in knowing that there wont be a particular VVS Lakshman taking guard, The Wall that was has stepped off the grid thankfully here the succession seems more secure than elsewhere but it is hardly gonna alleviate the uncertainty. Now I am going to hold up two fingers over here, we havent been able to find a suitable replacement for Ganguly in the 4 years and 33 days since his retirement, plus we have two huge holes to fill (one finger curled), AND Sachin Tendulkar has still been the most prolific scorer in all this time. Take a look at what I have below to simplify things a little bitName MS Dhoni Sachin Tendulkar Rahul Dravid Virat Kohli Virender Sehwag VVS Lakshman Gautam Gambhir 50+ scores since 1st July 2011 8 7 7 6 6 6 5

Of course many might want to chuck the whole lot of them out of the team and start afresh, but I hope youd forgive me the skepticism seeing how well the search for Gangulys replacement has gone. Its a whole different ball game once you wear the whites, as the likes of Yuvraj, Raina and Murali Vijay have discovered, and Tendulkar is still doing better (if marginally) than they have done at their best. If these are just random ramblings over the morning tea then there is little I can say. Else, well there is Nothing I can say except maybe - get a life, I know he is not going to play forever- but the prospects of anything otherwise still makes my heart clench with fear. Note : written words are often harder to express than spoken sentences, what might have come off as an angry rant was actually irritated insouciance. Postscript: Thanks to Leigh Butler , whose desk I dont envy. Post-post-script : aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh, Honour killing- dont get me started.