Dec 15, 2005 05:03 PM
1474 Views
(Updated Dec 15, 2005 10:15 PM)
THE KNIGHT .... GANGULY ...!!
The Tiger as we know him .......had been no doubt the most aggressive captainIndian Side has seen and will see for a long time .... other than being the most successful captain in the Indian history!
He invented the team huddle along with the then coach John Wright and made the team differences fade away in the huddle . Every time a wicket was taken by the Indian side ..... we could see that huddle coming ..!
He gradually dismissed the players who were still lingering around in the team because of their credit they had achieved years ago and no more cricket left !
He went against the management and brought in Yuvraj Singh and Mohd. Kaif and fought with the management till they proved that Ganguly was right in taking them in.
Whenever a bowler from his side was even close to recieving injustice from the umpire ... he showed up and did what he could to get it in picture and not to forget get himself a fine ... and maybe stay out of 1-2 games. He was The Captain Courageous who fought for his team and fought for India.
Now who can forget the aggressive shirt stripping that he did after India won a close match .
Nicknamed ''Bengal Tiger'', ''Prince of Calcutta'' and affectionately called ''Dada'' (''older brother'' in Bengali) by his teammates, he is a mixture of aggression on the field, while off the field he is passionate about the development of young players at grass roots level in Indian Cricket; he is credited with identifying a number of talented youngsters for the team.
He made his ODI debut in 1992 but his talent was noticed in India's 1996 tour of England when he scored centuries in his debut Test match, as well as the next one (the second and third Tests of the series). He became only the third cricketer ever to score a century on debut at Lord's after Harry Graham and John Hampshire. He scored 183 against Sri Lanka at Taunton in the 1999 cricket WorldCup, the highest by an Indian in World Cup cricket.
Ganguly's record as captain is outstanding. Numerically, he has more Test wins to his credit than any other Indian captain. He is the only Indian Captain to win both the One Day and Test Series on Pakistani soil. More importantly, he has been credited with transforming the Indian players into a vibrant team with an excellent team spirit.
On the other hand, he is a temperamental player and has often attracted controversy. After a poor string of performances during the last couple of seasons he was banned for 6 matches by the ICC match referee Clive Lloyd for slow over rates against Pakistan and therefore his tour to Sri Lanka for the Indian Oil Cup 2005 was uncertain. Under such circumstances, Rahul Dravid was made the captain for this tournament.
With his place in the Indian team under pressure, Ganguly ground out a painstakingly slow century against Zimbabwe, regarded as one of the weakest bowling attacks in international cricket. During this match he told reporters that newly-appointed coach Greg Chappell had asked him to stand down as captain - a comment which Chappell later played down.
Both Ganguly and Chappell were summoned to a BCCI board meeting in which they reached an agreement to work together for the good of the team. However, forty-eight hours after saying that he respected the Indian captain and looked forward to working with him in the future, Chappell fires off a damning email to the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Rahul Dravid was appointed captain for the series against Sri Lanka and South Africa after Ganguly was not selected for the opening games due to injury. Rahul Dravid has also been selected as the skipper for the Indian Test team, with effect from the upcoming series against Sri Lanka.
On November 22, 2005, Sourav stepped down as captain of Bengal cricket team after being replaced as captain of Indian Test team
On December 14, 2005, in an open instance of regional bias Sourav Ganguly was dropped from the Indian Test team for the 3rd test against the Sri Lankan Test team at Ahmedabad, effectively, according to most sports journalists, ending his career in international cricket.
Yuvraj Singh , Kaif , Harbhajan Singh and even Sehwag had taken Ganguly's side in the begining but had to leave the side if they did not want to go down with the captain.
Dalmia lost in the election to Pawar for the BCCI cheif and was removed and so were the people who were on his side from the committee. Since He favoured Ganguly and both of them together had broken a powerful Lobby (from a certain part of India that once existed causing maximum number of players to be taken in from that state) .... and blended in players from all over the country into the Indian team , so after Dalmia , inspite of scoring decent runs in the first 2 tests against Sri Lanka Ganguly had to go as well ..... that was very necessary to establish the lobby back again !!
After it was announced that Ganguly had to go .... not one of the senior players came to his room to talk to him till hours after the announcement.
Obviously some were happy that he would be no more there and the lobby would ..... some were scared and didnt want to jeopardise their own place .....
whatever the cause may be ..... this was the legion for whom he had taken the wrath from umpires and the management .... maybe even the coach !!
He was and is and will always be a fighter ... a KNIGHT .... a warior who fell prey to politics and serious powerful lobying . A Knight ...whose legion betrayed him ...!!
