Mitchell Starc's absence a huge setback - Sourav Ganguly

Thursday marked an important decision taken by the BCCI as the board decided to retreat from their decision to punish Steve Smith and Peter Handscomb because of their effort to use the Decision Review System in an illegal way in the second Test at Bangalore.

After a meeting between the chiefs of the both the boards, it has been decided that focus will be brought back on the game of cricket leaving the DRS controversy behind.

When asked about the matter, former Indian captain and CAB President Sourav Ganguly gave us a moment of laughter by quoting a dialogue from the Shah Rukh Khan movie Om Shanti Om “Aaj mujhe yakeen hogaya doston, ki hamari zindagi bhi hamare hindi filmon ke jaisa hi hai.. jaha pe end mein sab kuch theek ho jaata hai”.. “Happies Endings”.

The Australians were hit by tension in the dressing room as Mitchell Starc became the second member to be sidelined due to injury on Friday. Starc was diagnosed with a stress fracture on his right foot which will now see him miss the rest of the series. Mitchell Marsh is the other cricketer who has also been sent back home due to injury concerns.

The Bengal Tiger thinks that the absence of Mitchell Starc will affect the Aussies more than that of fellow teammate Mitchell Marsh. Ganguly, who is popularly known as “DADA”, said “I think Australia will miss Starc’s service more than Mitchell Marsh. He could play a huge role for Australia in the last two Test matches and in my view Australia will miss his presence in the field in the remaining Test matches,”

Under the captaincy of Sourav Ganguly or even Rahul Dravid, India enjoyed playing on pitches which favored spin as they had some excellent players of spin which included DADA himself. They also had legendary spinners like Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh proving support with the ball. But this series saw the Indian batsmen collapse like a pack of cards against Australian spin duo Nathan Lyon and Steeve O’Keefe.

Talking to the media Ganguly said “We played on a spinning track during our time but now you can see Kohli’s men are playing on a track which is a rank turner. So the wicket is a lot more different from that time.”