Rarely does one hear of players who have won the man-of-the-match award in their last international outing be relegated to the sidelines for the team’s next games. But that, curiously has been the case with Pragyan Ojha.


India's Pragyan Ojha during a net session at Lady Bay CC in Nottingham on June 9, 2009. Pic/Getty Images 

The left-arm spinner was brilliant in Sachin Tendulkar’s farewell Test at the Wankhede Stadium against West Indies last November, taking 10 wickets en route to being named player-of-the-match. It was a performance not sufficient for him to win a place in the couple of Tests that India played in South Africa in December. What’s more, he was dropped from the Test team that will play New Zealand in the two-Test series which kicks off next week.