Sourav Ganguly

Perth: The Brad Hogg hearing didn’t take place on Monday evening, but if it had, then Sourav Ganguly would’ve been cast in the unusual role of a witness for the Australian!

Sourav was, of course, called to the eighth-floor room at the Hyatt Regency where Mike Procter was to act on the Indians’ complaint, but he had no clue as to what had been cooking.

According to The Telegraph’s sources, Hogg would’ve argued that Sourav hadn’t been offended when he called him a “b******” at the SCG. So, why did captain Anil Kumble and vice-captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni take such offence?

Sourav, for his part, denied having been abused in that manner. “I don’t think it went out of hand and I certainly didn’t ask Hogg to f*** ** in retaliation… I wasn’t told anything and went up only because the manager (Chetan Chauhan) asked me to…”

Chauhan, incidentally, also didn’t know that Sourav was to have been a “prime witness” for Hogg.

Sourav, meanwhile, felt better on Monday. “If the fever doesn’t come back, I should be fit for the third Test,” he said.

For Sourav, the day began with a trip to a clinic for a blood test — the report, though, wasn’t available till late in the evening.

Quite sensibly, he skipped nets.