The Evils Of Indian Cricket Have Finally Arrived. Review on Saurav Ganguly

For once, I don’t care if I ain’t pleasing everyone here because what I’m writing here is purely what I believe in.

I think this is the time when Indian cricket is hitting the all time low- morally!

What hurts me the most is the attitude of people at large and more so the Indian media. I thought the media is supposed to be neutral and not drive public opinion for the sake of the channel’s popularity:

1) Are we all so forgetful of Sourav Ganguly’s records with the bat throughout his career?

a. I know for facts that Sourav still figures among the top10 if not the top 5 cricketers of the world when it comes to any batting record. And among Indian cricketers, among top 5; and in many as number 2 after Sachin.

b. He is still known as one of the cleanest hitters of the cricket ball over the bowler’s head for six. The only other Indian I know who was a master in this stroke was Navjot Singh Siddhu.

c. “On the off side, first there is God and there is Sourav Ganguly” was famously announced by none other than Rahul Dravid himself….need I or the world say more on that- I have seen matches when the opposition placed 75% of the fielders on the off side but Sourav still pierced the field to reach the boundary.

2) Are the brainwaves of the spectators so fragile that they have forgotten of Sourav Ganguly as the captain of the Indian cricket team?

a. We all know when Sourav took over as captain; the Indian team was literally struggling with all kinds of controversies. It was Sourav who reunited the team together.

b. Reaching World Cup final and being runners up was not a fluke but a real gritty effort and it wouldn’t have been possible without motivated captaincy, making correct decisions and proper team management on the part of Ganguly.

c. We all know of India trashing Australia in their own backyard which no other team had done before in the recent past and the memorable series win in Pakistan under Sourav’s captaincy.

d. We all know that he was instrumental in identifying, nurturing and retaining new, young and potential talent irrespective of the player’s zonal origins.

e. At the same time, he was instrumental in delegating authority to different senior players in the team- Sachin and Rahul as the batting sub-captains, Kumble as the bowling sub-captain that formed the nucleus around which there were the newer players with potentials.

3) Is the Indian media so obsessed with competition and TRP ratings that it’s forgetting ethics and making Sourav a scapegoat?

a. Whenever I see talk shows on Indian cricket, I find Indian TV channels favorite topic being lashing out at Sourav Ganguly.

b. Navjot Singh Siddhu in a recent interview mentioned that how fair is it to only show footage of Sourav being stuck with a ball on his helmet again and again? Can’t the media show the innumerable sixes and offside shots that he has played over the years? Why not? Doesn’t the media have to be neutral? I guess (yet still!) that there are sensible senior people perched on top at the media houses- don’t that have a say on it? You just cant keep on showing on minuscule negative part of a legendary coin.

c. Sourav Ganguly’s achievements surpass by leaps and bounds more than his failures. You can’t keep on dragging on with stats and figures depicting his failures. Every great man has his bout of failures, so, why not Sourav?

d. Moreover, blaming solely the captain for a team’s loss is not correct. A team has 11 players, reserves, management…let’s not forget them.

4) Finally how much do statistics and figures helps to prove a point in the Indian context especially with cricket?

a. We, as Indians, are emotional. Our heart rules over our head. Cricket is a game which humans play not machines. At the same times, it is not a Hindi movie where the hero is invincible and always has the last say. Yes, we are playing the same game as Australians, the English are playing but we attached different values to a win and loss.

b. A performance of a player and a captain goes beyond mere stats and figures. Pulling out this record in the past 2 years every time Ganguly fails is as good as a penny’s thought. Why not pull out his entire career record instead?

c. If we are to say that his performance over the past couple of years has been only good against the lower end teams such as Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and the likes, then why haven’t all the players performed well in each match against these teams? Moreover, ICC has itself granted them status to play international matches, not Sourav Ganguly!! If these teams are really inferior then why do we still remember the famous 175 by Kapil Dev? Why do we still remember the Pakistan-Bangladesh match, which Pakistan lost?

d. Why are we not ready to accept and acknowledge the achievements of Sourav as the captain? Reaching finals by itself is a big thing in itself. But it is not always the captain who is to be blamed. India were never good finishers except the 1983 World cup and some few tournaments. It’s under Sourav Ganguly’s captaincy that reaching finals and clinching a cup became a realistic vision.

e. The media keeps on ridiculing Sourav removing his shirt at Lord’s after the Natwest win. Have they become so vain in ignoring the episode when Flintoff removed his shirt at Wankhede? Have the Indian public and the Indian media lost all their self respect and accept what foreigners do in our own soil and then shameless criticize what an Indian does as a fitting reply at the same foreign soil? Sourav is proud to be an Indian like many of us (I guess!) and there was a lot of pride and prestige at stake after the Flintoff episode and it would only remain an insult unanswered if Sourav hadn’t replied to it so very revengefully!!

Indian cricket in now in a sad state of affairs. If some players like Harbhajan and Yuvraj Singh want to voice their support for Sourav, there are asked to keep quite and ensure that the anti-Sourav wave persists. Winning few matches under the new captain and coach doesn't say anything- it's a long way to go still to prove that any other player in the Indian team is a better captain than Sourav Ganguly. The demons have been given the green signals to cast their shadow on the game we Indians love!