Sourav Chandidas Ganguly would be remembered as one of the greatest captains in Indian cricket history. His cricketing greatness got overshadowed by the presence of other contemporary legendary batsmen in Indian cricket teams in the form of Sachin, Dravid and Laxman.
I remember when Sourav first donned Indian colours and it was the tour down under. He was given a chance to play in One day International match against Australia, he scored around 14-15 runs and gave his wicket cheaply. There was this rumour that he had been selected because of the influence of his father. I also remember the RAMU joke, which was that Sourav refused to be 12 man and said that- YEH KAAM TO HAMARE GHAR ME RAMU KARTA HAI. Well, I was not surprised when he got dropped from the team. I thought of him as one series wonders like many in the past from Bengal such as Arun Lal, Ashok Malhotra etc.
After 4 years of anonymity Sourav was given another chance but this time on the basis of his first class performances! He announced his first comeback with a thumping thud and scored a fluent debut century at Lords. Dada had arrived- Prince of Bengal had silenced his critics and sort of indicated that he is hereto play a long innings this time. Sourav's batting thrived on offside domination and I think if one sees the runs scored by him then more than 70% would have been scored on the off.
Well, the biggest contribution of Ganguly to Indian cricekt was to turn Indian cricket team to a fearless unit which could give it back to dominating teams especially Australia. Steve waugh dubbed it as a last frontier and wanted to win in India badly but Sourav was waiting for him. Steve waugh said in his autobiography ' OUT OF MY COMFORT ZONE' that Ganguly was late for toss 7 times. Steve claimed to be a master of mental disintegration but here it was Ganguly who was giving it back that too in style.
Ganguly's masterstroke in 2001 series against Aussies was to pick unknown Harbhajan to more favoured Shrandeep singh. I think bhajji was only 18 or 19 at that time and haven't played much cricket till then. It proved to be a calculated gamble, Bhajji demolished the touted batting line up. He took a hat trick and got Ponting 5 times in his 6 innings. Gilchrist only scored 19 runs after his century in the first innings at Wankhede. In the epic test at Calcutta Laxman decided to play innings of his life and then Sachin and Bhajji delat the lethal blow. Well, Sourav inflicted Steve Waugh his first defeat in 16 tests and that is a cherished moment for any Indian cricket fan.
In my opinion Sourav inculcated a belief and desire to win in Indian contingent. He was unorthodox but calculative at the same time. He nurtured young players and showed faith in them. He also showed others to not to take India lightlty and his response to Flintoff's antics at the Lord's balcony was the most unexpected one. But, it did give a strong message that Indian cricket is evolving and it does not need pushing around..........
These were the good points, what about the bad points? like when he tried to divide the team in the ganguly vs chappel chapter?
ReplyDeleteI don't think Sourav ever tried to divide the team. If you play in a team sport then you will know that there are factions in every team even in a team line Man U. Chappel was the villian d'piece in that saga. Sourav proved everyone wrong he made his second come back and proved to be more consistent batsman before his retirement.
ReplyDeletei some what agree with what you say ,his style of leadership was very vibrant ,you could feel that someone is one the field ,always trying to do something ,there was a touch of arrogance in his captaincy which helped him earlier on but susequently led to his downfall.
ReplyDeleteover all the best captain i had seen before dhoni.