Forgotten hero

Heroes and hype - they go hand in hand. As a nation,
Indians have always put their cricket heroes on a high
pedestal. They shower them with praise, but they also
have a nasty habit of soon forgetting them once the
hype is over.

If last year Team India had no place for Sourav, this
year Team Orissa has no place for 28-year-old
right-handed opener Shiv Sundar Das, Orissa's first
Test centurian. While the Raj Singh Dungarpurs and the
Greg Chappells saw to it that Sourav was excluded, in
Orissa it's OCA secretary Ashirbad Behera and chief
selector Chinmayananda Behera.

Das, who has opened in 23 Tests on-the-trot and
captained the State Ranji squad till 2004, was dropped
on Monday by the Orissa Cricket Association from the
the list of 25 probables for the East Zone Ranji
Trophy one-day championship to be held at Dhanbad from
Feb 11. Neither the news made it to the frontpages of
local newspapers nor did it create a sense of
indignation among the people of the State.

Read my take on SS Das's exclusion in today's Telegraph.