King, who keeps a tab on the fitness of Indian team, apparently believed that Ganguly's lower half could give him trouble before long and this went a long way in sealing the fate of the pugnacious left-hander.

The selectors -- Dilip Vengsarkar and Co. -- including Ranjib Biswal and Venkatapathy Raju on the present tour -- were keen to have Ganguly retained as late as on the second day of the Perth Test last week.

They even toyed with the idea of recalling Rahul Dravid, basing their argument that Rohit Sharma and Robin Uthappa had not done much of note in the domestic circuit lately.

Dhoni though had different ideas and informed the selectors that it did not serve much purpose to include a player who could break down at some stage of the one-day tour.

The argument against Ganguly also included the points that he was not of much use either in the outfield or infield and his fitness really became an issue after 40 overs.