Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly said that tainted Rajasthan Royals pacer S Sreesanth was a waste of a talent after the latter was one of the three cricketers arrested in the spot-fixing controversy during the sixth season of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
“For me, Sreesanth is an absolute waste of talent. When you are gifted with so much talent and you don't use it, it's pointless. What will you do for 40 lakh? It's just one Test series for him. If you get 20 wickets in three Test matches, you get double the money. If he does well in one season of IPL, he gets 10 times the money. I don't know whether he has done it or not. I don't have any proof, but whatever I have heard on TV, if he has done it, it's absolute stupidity,” he said, as reported by the Times of India.
However, despite the spot-fixing and betting controversy stretching for too long, Ganguly did not agree that Indian cricket was losing its sheen.
“I don't think so. There's a problem everywhere. There's one bad fish in every pond, a couple of bad fish in every river. That doesn't make the pond or the river bad. You have these issues, but India has produced cricketers like [Sachin] Tendulkar, [Rahul] Dravid, Ganguly, [Mahendra Singh] Dhoni, [Virender] Sehwag, whom people can't touch. I don't think one can judge cricket based on a few people,” he said.
Ganguly also praised Test cricket, and spoke of its importance in India.
“India does nurture Test cricket and it has to be done. It's the best form of cricket. To be recognized as a powerful cricket nation, you need to have a good Test team. This team is going through a transition. Over the past year, it has done well in ODIs but not in Tests. So, there's a big opportunity in the coming 15-16 Test matches to do well.”
sources: https://bit.ly/sourav-sreesanth
