Sourav Ganguly - To be or not to be

A Special Feature by Karthik Narayan

Cricket in India has been such a grand success in the recent past due to the tremendous support for the game from every corner of the country. It is the spectators who have come in uncountable numbers and the viewers back home with their television sets and on the websites that have nurtured this game into a big industry even! And right now, one question mounts on almost everybody’s lips, “should Saurav Ganguly stay in the team?”

Ganguly and Captaincy - well matched, Ganguly and Batting – mismatched; is it the right word for it? While India has been commanding respect and crusading every corner of the globe in the last 3 years, Ganguly has been happily sitting over the wins and the laurels and quietly his batting has entered the landfills of reality.

Being captain of India is never an easy task – as many former captains would swear by, but that merely does not mean the captain can get away with some poor cricket. Ganguly has indeed forgotten that he is a prime batsman in this Indian team. He is so very absorbed with his captaincy and leadership skills that he has forgotten that he came from the batting schools to break into the Indian team.

Ganguly disappeared after that 1991-92 tour when India went Down Under. The Indian Manager during that tour is said to have quoted that our Prince of Kolkata refused to carry drinks for the players in the field. We don't know the real truth anyways with Ganguly strongly denying any such incidents. But great performances in the Indian domestic front found him soon amongst the top brass of Indian cricket. When India toured England in 1996, Navjot Sidhu’s walkout was the right break that Ganguly was hoping for. Ganguly grabbed that opportunity with both hands – a century on debut at Lord’s and one couldn’t have hoped for a better debut.

His ODI debut in 1991-92 was the very series when he opened his mouth faster than his run count. And he wasn’t selected until South Africa toured in 1996 along with the Australians for the Titan Cup. One should admit that Ganguly knew his strengths and worked a lot on improvising upon them, while he also started practicing his leg-side play; but these things don’t come after a player wants to play at the highest level and then goes back to the nets. Least to say, it is like an office-goer who has been given a job go back to school to learn the alphabets!

If that wasn’t so laid back and taken for granted for an Indian cricketer, this is the last straw being captain and not concentrating on his batting at all. True, captaincy means extra pressure, but one should never restrict his thinking to bowling changes and strategy for field settings – after all the game is greater than the individual, but the game is made up of these very individuals. Cricket is a team game, each one has their own role to play – the captain of all has to take the burden of both his specialization and the additional role of captaincy.

It was a shame to see Ganguly get out in dismal fashions to the spinners, who he loves to hit out of the ground. And his playing against the short-pitched ball has been appalling to say the least! Shocking to see such an elegant player of our times struggle to get past the double figure mark in both tests and ODIs in the recent past! There has never been a doubt about his captaincy skills- he is the best ever test captain for India with a high success percentage and the maximum wins by an Indian captain. He took over as Indian captain in the year 2000 and since then his captaincy record has been fantastic.

True, Sachin wasn’t the greatest of captains for India – but he never let the team down with his batting. Even though so much was talked about his batting record being poor as captain, it wasn’t as bad as it shows in Ganguly’s case. Even Ganguly’s record prima facie does not look bad – but if u consider where he has gotten his runs from, it is not amusing to know that he hasn’t got a decent knock in years! Runs against Bangladesh, the kids of cricket coupled with the odd half-century once a blue moon and some meaningless runs against other minnows speak little. His average in the last 10 tests is much lesser than his career average, and his last five test innings read like a local telephone number!

Things are to be viewed in a different perspective – he has to lead the team and gain his respect by putting in 100% and the team’s interests ahead of his personal interests. Even when India has been performing well, Ganguly’s presence is much more essential and he needs to reassert himself in the world of cricket as a player. He has to admit that his role as a team player has not been really considered whenever he has come out to bat; he hasn’t really worked on staying long out there.

It is high time Ganguly prioritizes his current needs and works at his batting – not unless he intends to step down from his captaincy. So that he may work his way back into the team. Only when that happens will Indian cricket really have true professionalism.