Go... Gone, Ganguly!

Finally, Saurav Ganguly has decided to take the sane route and has decided to call it quits from cricket . I guess this should be a cue for Dravid and a bit later, Sachin Tendulkar to start planning for their swansongs too.

While I might not be a very vocal supporter of Ganguly, there was a period of time when I liked Ganguly a lot - the time when he scored centuries in ODIs against teams other than Kenya, Namibia and Holland. And, arguably, he along with SRT formed the best ODI opening (or any?) batting partnership. The dominance of India in ODIs in the last 10 odd years can be mainly attributed to the stability that he provided along with SRT. Comparisons have always been there, especially when you are batting alongside the finest batting genius India ever produced (for the ODI format) and to his credit, Ganguly has stood up to the comparison and delivered. If not for he taking his "aggressiveness" and "Captain Courageous" tags too seriously, he might have ended up on the good side of more people. I cannot forget seeing Ganguly in the Indian dressing room (at MAC Stadium) in 2001, talking on a damned cell phone when Steve Waugh was at the center, waiting for the toss. It was my first experience of watching a game with the players and it was bad that I had a bad taste at that with Ganguly's disrespect for the Australian captain. And while he was instrumental in people like Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh being successes, he was also responsible for not backing people like Shriram or Badani - who are much better fielders than Yuvraj and are decent hits with the bat too. But, for all the negatives I've given here, SCG remains the most successful Indian captain ever (which, I hope Dhoni would break, at least in ODIs). Here's wishing him the best in life after the playing field - in IPL or the commentary team (How many of you remember Ganguly saying that if you are chasing 260 plus, you need to score 90 odd in 15 overs during the Kochi ODI against Australia in 1998 - the game where Sachin took 5 wickets).

Here's a list of favorite Ganguly knocks/performances.


1. Dhaka - Independence Cup - Scored a gutsy 120 odd. This, in my rating is the best Ganguly ODI innings.

2. World Cup - 1999 - Sri Lanka @ Taunton - 183 runs - Muralitharan was never spanked more in my knowledge.

3. Sahara Cup in Toronto - Ganguly's most favorite tournament, I guess.

4. Obviously, the debut series against England, 1996

5. Brisbane 144 against Australia in the first test in 2005.

The Wall is being pounded

No this is not some wall on the Indo-Pak border. This Wall is India's most valuable match-winner till date. Match after match, series after series, Dravid has been the only player apart from Tendulkar to score against any opposition, on any pitch and under every clime.. He might not be your bludgeon wielding mass murderer of the Tendulkar-Lara kinds - but he was much more effective. His knocks have won more matches than the sum of Sachin's and Lara's match winning knocks. And he has been dropped from the team for the sake of a flat track bully, who can't say 'boo' to a cat on a pitch which has a tinge of green on it, on present form (which is pretty much constant over the last 2 years). And the other thing about this gentleman, Mr. Dravid is that he is one of the most self-less players, at least from those whom I've seen. Dravid would get a penciled No.3 slot in any team - yes, any team including Australia. He averages close to 60 in the tests at No. 3, which is next to only to - behold, a certain No.3 batsman named Sir Donald Bradman. In the one day arena, where he averages a shade under 40, his performances need to be put in perspective of the fact that after being with the team for more than 10 years, he STILL doesn't have a standard batting position - and this is not because his skills are suspect. In the time he was the captain, he could have made sure he gelled his position in the batting order, which was always taken for granted by the previous captains. Sample this, with the ever so inconsistent Srinath heading a young pace attack was not able to accommodate a keeper and Dravid had the guts to take up keeping and did a pretty good job of it in the WC 2K3. And I think he would be the only player to have played in all the positions from opening to No.6 for India and inarguably, he has done well in any position. And to make it better, Dravid is one of the better fielders in the Indian team, especially in the slips and formed a 'Taylor-Warne'-like combo with the Bangalore Bamboozler, Anil Kumble. Its a pity that when sub-standard players are giving a 20 match period to regain form, the Wall is being dumped after ONE poor series.

For those interested, this what Cricinfo has got to say about Mr. Dependable.

Highlights from Cricinfo's Dravid profile:

"Unusually for an Indian batsman, he also averages more overseas - around 60, again - than at home. But impressive as his statistics are, they cannot represent the extent of his importance to India, or the beauty of his batsmanship."

"As a New India emerged, so did a new Dravid: first, he put on the wicketkeeping gloves in one-dayers, and transformed himself into an astute finisher in the middle-order; then, he strung together a series of awe-inspiring performances in Test matches, as India crept closer and closer to their quest of an overseas series win."

"As India finished off the 2004 Pakistan tour on a winning note, on the back of Dravid's epic 270, his average crept past Sachin Tendulkar's - and it seemed no aberration."

DISCLAIMER:

For those who know me personally, having heard me ranting and riling against Dravid, if its Sachin Vs Rahul, I support Sachin for many reasons - but having followed Indian cricket for much of my 23 year life, I cannot deny that Dravid is one gift for Indian cricket after Sachin Tendulkar.

சீ...சீ... இந்த பழம் புளிக்கும்

Rahul Dravid has been, in my opinion, one of the weakest captains ever to lead India - He might be the steely nerved colossus when he is at the striker's end, but as a captain, Dravid is hardly a patch on Saurav Ganguly with the lead from the front attitude, who never minced words when it came to voicing his opinion. Ganguly was honest when he said he was paying back Steve Waugh with his own coin, when he made Waugh wait at the Chennai match for half an hour before the toss. Purists might frown, but Ganguly did successfully ward off Waugh's quest for the Last Frontier. Dravid, in a nutshell, lacks the toughness and aggression that is required of an international cricket captain.

Dravid in this interview with CNN-IBN has said that India has an obsession with the World Cup. Isn't this funny? If you are a competitor and don't strive for the pinnacle, people will call you a L-O-S-E-R. India might win the test series in England or even a test series down-under, but unless they win the WC, they can never be called World Champions. And as a team, if they don't have that veri to be World Champions, sorry, India and Mr. Dravid, you simply aren't up there with the Waughs, Jayasuriyas, Akrams, Pontings or even the Gangulys. Perhaps the next-gen of cricketers like Yuvraj, Karthik pick up the gauntlet and bring the trophy to India.