Was ganguly India's greatest Test captain?

[Ankit_sharma03]

Acc to me he was good captain, but calling him best is very debatable 

So lets debate .....

[kira]

53 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

Ok lets have a debate on this 

 

He actually didnt, he didnt have a choice as middle order was packed, that was more out of lack of option to fit him in rather than a tactical move

This move was both due to lack of place in middle order and due to success of sehwag as an opener. Yuvi was regarded as one of the most talented youngsters in India during those days, many people felt that he deserved a chance in test cricket, you might not be familiar with yuvi's reputation in domestics but me being from chandigarh and punjab used to regularly follow score cards of ranji trohpy involving yuvi. The move to make yuvi wasn't a bad move at all, yuvi had the hand eye coordination like sehwag to become successful, but he was exposed and he couldn't adapt to the longer format, even if you call is a blunder on ganguly's part, it still doesn't make any impact on his captaincy because many other decisions from him did click.

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Even in ODi, if u check that series every batsman was send to open even yuvraj singh

Ganguly was just a good captain in ODIs, he wasn't a great odi captain, I never even argued for odis in the first place

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Aussie went for a win athen they lost, they didnt loose like us. 

We started ducking every ball and went into shell 

How does it matter, aussie loss was way more embarrassing that ours

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SO isnt it an argument the guy never won a series overseas

Of course not, the fact that he took over a team which couldn't even win a single test abroad and made them into a team which could get into series winning position abroad should be enough to cement his position at the top. He built the team from scratch

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Isnt this an argument that he use to loose after hvaing upper hand in the series

Explained above

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Isnt this an argument he kept playing injured bowlers like Nehra n zaheer

Really? Is this your argument? I am not sure if this is news to you but Indian doesn't have marshalls and ambrose sitting on the bench, we were not overflowing with fast bowlers, and I am not sure which matches you are referring to where he played nehra and zaheer injured but seriously even if he did then he was not wrong, was he? A half fit zaheer wouldve performed better than the domestic bowlers of those days

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Isnt this an argument he disturbed a settled opening pair of sehwag n chopra coz of his wish of making yuvi open. 

Chopra was a mediocre cricketer, he was never going to succeed, he sucked the momentum at the top and should have been replaced anyway, and why do you keep bringing yuvi opening again and again, I think the only reason you don't consider ganguly great is because he made yuvi open.

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Isnt this an argument that his record isnt that gr8 if u remove his victories against Zimb n Bang 

Really? His record isn't great? Were you comparing his record with australian or south african teams? Just blindly looking at records is where you are wrong, to get a better perspective you need to compare him with what he got at the start of his captaincy, what kind of players he had, and what type of players he introduced. A blind look at stats will only give you a narrow perspective, I have already said, ganguly's greatest achievement and his legacy is the team he left behind after taking over as captaincy. Do you think stephen flemming was a pathetic captain? Because his stats are bad.

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Isnt this argument his declarations against aus in kolkata n in sydeny showed he was an extra cautious captain. 

Again, Really? did you even watch that series live? That aussie team is probably the greatest team in history, India on the other hand was a lower ranked team which barely won outside home and was whitewashed by south africa at home in 97-98 (I think). How can you even blame him for being cautious? You really like to view things from a narrow perspective, don't you? Indian fans seem to have unrealistic expectations from the team

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Isnt this an argument he kept persisting with someone like parthi despite his poor run and then karthik which delayed the entrance of Dhoni. 

Ganguly is the one who selected dhoni (even dhoni aknowledged it in the movie ). Do you have any stats to show why dhoni should have been picked before parthiv or karthik? India tried a lot of keepers in those days until dhoni, wait this isn't even an argument worth responding, what were you thinking while typing this.

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Then ofcourse the famous nagpur test where he faked an injury..........watching grass on pitch . 

And you know that how? Is there any proof that he faked an injury or you are a conspiracy theorist like those media walas who spread this story.

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	India 2nd innings (target: 383 runs)		R	M	B	4s	6s	SR
	G Gambhir	lbw b Mohammad Sami	52	152	124	7	0	41.93
	V Sehwag	run out (Abdul Razzaq)	38	107	53	6	0	71.69
	R Dravid	c Younis Khan b Arshad Khan	16	70	64	2	0	25.00
	SR Tendulkar	c Asim Kamal b Shahid Afridi	16	140	98	2	0	16.32
	VVS Laxman	lbw b Shahid Afridi	5	35	29	1	0	17.24
	SC Ganguly*	b Shahid Afridi	2	16	14	0	0	14.28
	KD Karthik†	b Mohammad Sami	9	55	44	2	0	20.45
	A Kumble	not out	37	89	52	7	0	71.15
	IK Pathan	c Yousuf Youhana b Arshad Khan	0	35	29	0	0	0.00
	Harbhajan Singh	c Younis Khan b Danish Kaneria	8	29	22	1	0	36.36
	L Balaji	lbw b Danish Kaneria	0	17	16	0	0	0.00
	Extras	(b 8, lb 8, w 10, nb 5)	31
	Total	(all out; 90 overs; 377 mins)	214	(2.37 runs per over)

 

 

YE le banglore test ka evidence.....how whole team went into shell......and surrendered again after having a upper hand in the series. Which has also previously happ in ZIMB, AUS, WI 

Again and again, repeating same statements, first of all what did you expect on a 5th day turning track, and why is ganguly being blamed for a batting failure anyway? Even if Ganguly's captaincy was bad in this match, does it negate the great things he has done? Like I said before, me saying that ganguly was the greatest captain in the last 30 years doesn't mean that he never made any mistake or blunder. Lastly I would like to ask you, if you are disputing Ganguly as being the greatest in the last 30 years then who is better than ganguly and why? 

Edited May 20, 2017 by kira

[express bowling]

Yes, Ganguly has been the best Indian test captain till date.

 

He also has the best win-loss ratio among retired Indian test captains.

 

I hope the newer Indian test captains surpass him.

Edited May 21, 2017 by express bowling

[rtmohanlal]

No.... for me the best Indian captain is Kapil Dev.Why? First of all a player need to be  in 'great' category. Ganguly at best was only a 'very good' category player.More over the team Ganguly had at his disposal was one of the best Indian teams of all time.Kapil lead a mediocre team & brought about some memorable results.

2nd is Dhoni in my list because Dhoni himself was a great player. He was a great one day captain too.

[sscomp32]

No. For me it was Kumble from the one i watched. Doesnt have much stats in his favour but i loved his captaincy style. 

Dravid was good to a certain extent too. 

 

MSD was the best home captain but overseas records damage a lot. 

 

[BeautifulGame]

No. For me it was Kumble from the one i watched. Doesnt have much stats in his favour but i loved his captaincy style. 

Dravid was good to a certain extent too. 

 

MSD was the best home captain but overseas records damage a lot. 

 

 

Kumble was an awful defensive captain.

 

 

[BeautifulGame]

 

As for the thread the simple answer is No.

 

 

He was good but not that good.Ganguly averaged 29 as captain in India .Sums it up .If anything he should have been dropped long back if not for captaincy.Selfishly batted ahead of VVS in test cricket which harmed the team plenty .

 

 

He was great at giving youngsters a go and backing them to the hilt though.Always deserves huge respect for that.

 

 

As for the best ,Dravid was the best test captain we had particularly overseas.He used our fast bowling resources best of all the captains I have seen.

 

 

As for ODIs Dhoni is obviously the best and Ganguly would be 2nd behind him.

 

 

[Ankit_sharma03]

10 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

As for the thread the simple answer is No.

 

He was good but not that good.Ganguly averaged 26 as captain in India .Sums it up .If anything he should have been dropped long back if not for captaincy.Selfishly batted ahead of VVS in test cricket which harmed the team plenty .

 

He was great at giving youngsters a go and backing them to the hilt though.Always deserves huge respect for that.

 

As for the best ,Dravid was the best test captain we had particularly overseas.He used our fast bowling resources best of all the captains I have seen.

 

As for ODIs Dhoni is obviously the best and Ganguly would be 2nd behind him.

Pretty much u have said all whatever i wanted to 

Ill add one more reason he never was able to pull a killer blow and win series despite having upper hand many times. 

 

Agree, For me to Dravid was best , have hopes kohli will surpass all . 

 

Nothing more to add

[BeautifulGame]

 

Yes, Ganguly was the best Indian test captain till date.

 

 

 

He also had the best win-loss ratio among retired Indian test captains.

 

 

 

I hope the newer Indian test captains surpass him.

 

 

 

 

Ganguly has the best win loss ratio because he played lots more against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh lol

 

 

Exclude these two minnows ,Kohli , MSD ,Dravid and Gavaskar all have better win loss ratio than Ganguly .Nice misleading stats lol.

 

[sscomp32]

26 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

Kumble was an awful defensive captain.

 

 

I guess i just like him. But i definitely agree with Dravid being the best.  

[BeautifulGame]

To put in perspective how how awful a liability his batting was in India as captain .We practically played with 5 batsman half the time.

[kira]

22 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

To put in perspective how how awful a liability his batting was in India as captain .We practically played with 5 batsman half the time.

Another biased and uninformed post

Why did you only post home stats? If Ganguly was bad at home at least he made up for it away. And what does ganguly the batsman has to do in the Ganguly the captain debate? 

 

Records type batting analysis [change type]

View innings by innings list [change view]

Opposition team Australia or England or New Zealand or Pakistan or South Africa or Sri Lanka or West Indies

Home or away away (home of opposition)

Involving the captain SC Ganguly (INDIA)

Ordered by start date (ascending)

Return to query menu Cleared query menu

Career averages

	Span	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	0	4s	6s
unfiltered	1996-2008	113	188	17	7212	239	42.17	14070	51.25	16	35	13	90 0	57	Profile
filtered	2001-2004	21	35	4	1319	144	42.54	2449	53.85	2	8	1	172	6

Edited May 20, 2017 by kira

[kira]

26 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

Pretty much u have said all whatever i wanted to 

Ill add one more reason he never was able to pull a killer blow and win series despite having upper hand many times. 

 

Agree, For me to Dravid was best , have hopes kohli will surpass all . 

 

Nothing more to add

lol you open a new thread and then run away, why did you open this thread if you weren't going to reply to my points, and how is dravid better than ganguly lol kuch bhi

[Jimmy Cliff]

37 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ganguly has the best win loss ratio because he played lots more against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh lol

 

 

 

 

Exclude these two minnows ,Kohli , MSD ,Dravid and Gavaskar all have better win loss ratio than Ganguly .Nice misleading stats lol.

 

That's true but the Zimbabwe during 98-2002 were a pretty decent side. I'd say they were better than the current WI team and would give the current SL/Pak sides a run for their money. Ganguly was also up against the GOAT Australian side whereas Dhoni/Kohli have generally led against meh Aussie teams. In fact NZ, Pak, Aus, WI, SL were all much better in Ganguly's era compared to the current lot. I believe Ganguly remains the only Indian captain to have won series against both Australia and SA.

Edited May 20, 2017 by Jimmy Cliff

[BeautifulGame]

That's true but the Zimbabwe during 98-2002 were a pretty decent side. I'd say they were better than the current WI team and would give the current SL/Pak sides a run for their money. Ganguly was also up against the GOAT Australian side whereas Dhoni/Kohli have generally led against meh Aussie teams. In fact say NZ, Pak, Aus, WI, SL were all much better in Ganguly's era compared to the current lot. I believe Ganguly remains the only Indian captain to have won series against both Australia and SA.

 

At home ?

Kohli has already won.Azhar won against both SA and Australia as well.

 

No such unique record.Only Dhoni failed to beat Saffers in India (Sachin too but that's different)

 

Other haven't because they never played SA at home.

 

 

[Jimmy Cliff]

1 minute ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

At home ?

Kohli has already won.Azhar won against both SA and Australia as well.

 

No such unique record.Only Dhoni failed to beat Saffers in India (Sachin too but that's different)

 

Other haven't because they never played SA at home.

 

 

Kohli didn't win vs Australia. It was 1-1 in the 3 Tests that he led

Azhar didn't win vs SA either. Sachin was the captain in 1996 when we beat them 2-1.

[BeautifulGame]

Kohli didn't win vs Australia. It was 1-1 in the 3 Tests that he led

Azhar didn't win vs SA either. Sachin was the captain in 1996 when we beat them 2-1.

 

My mistake then .I thought Azhar was captain .Anyway the points the same.Its because none of them (including Azhar) haven't played Saffers apart from Dhoni and Ganguly .So I don't see how that's anything unique.

 

You can put such unique stats for anyone though.

 

Dhoni the only captain to have beaten NZL home and away in last 30 - RP years

 

Dravid the only Indian captain to win series wins in both England and West Indies.

 

Etc.

 

Also by that logic we didn't win a single series overseas (except minnows ) under Ganguly.And that was the period we had our greatest ever test team.

[express bowling]

The main thing about Ganguly's captaincy was that he removed the Inferiority complex that most Indian cricket teams used to have against the strong teams of their respective eras. 

 

This aspect became even better as time passed but he started it. 

 

 He also started the aggresive era in Indian cricket.... we started to give back more sh!t than we received.... it is quite natural now but it was quite the opposite till the late '90s.

 

All this was badly needed to transform the talented Indian cricketing bunch from being the perennial underdogs, even when we were winning, to a dominant bunch.

Edited May 20, 2017 by express bowling

[Ankit_sharma03]

2 hours ago, kira said:

This move was both due to lack of place in middle order and due to success of sehwag as an opener. Yuvi was regarded as one of the most talented youngsters in India during those days, many people felt that he deserved a chance in test cricket, you might not be familiar with yuvi's reputation in domestics but me being from chandigarh and punjab used to regularly follow score cards of ranji trohpy involving yuvi. The move to make yuvi wasn't a bad move at all, yuvi had the hand eye coordination like sehwag to become successful, but he was exposed and he couldn't adapt to the longer format, even if you call is a blunder on ganguly's part, it still doesn't make any impact on his captaincy because many other decisions from him did click.

My question was sending yuvi as opener not wasting him before trying him in test. 

2 hours ago, kira said:

Ganguly was just a good captain in ODIs, he wasn't a great odi captain, I never even argued for odis in the first place

How does it matter, aussie loss was way more embarrassing that ours

Aussie loss was not embarrassing by any way. Sometimes credit shud be given to opposition and it was a miraculous turnaround to our credit. 

2 hours ago, kira said:

Of course not, the fact that he took over a team which couldn't even win a single test abroad and made them into a team which could get into series winning position abroad should be enough to cement his position at the top. He built the team from scratch

That again comparing him to the lowest point. If u have to best ur comparison shud be with the good thing

No he didnt built the team from scratch- he had sachin, dravid, kumble , Srinath.......these players deserve credit for that era. Credit to him for bringing laxman n bhajji back n backing zak , sehwag. No one is taking that away 

2 hours ago, kira said:

Explained above

Really? Is this your argument? I am not sure if this is news to you but Indian doesn't have marshalls and ambrose sitting on the bench, we were not overflowing with fast bowlers, and I am not sure which matches you are referring to where he played nehra and zaheer injured but seriously even if he did then he was not wrong, was he? A half fit zaheer wouldve performed better than the domestic bowlers of those days

No half a fit zaheer just use to get smashed and get injured and kept getting injured . During that phase he was constantly struggling with fitness becoz healing process wasnt completed. 

2 hours ago, kira said:

Chopra was a mediocre cricketer, he was never going to succeed, he sucked the momentum at the top and should have been replaced anyway, and why do you keep bringing yuvi opening again and again, I think the only reason you don't consider ganguly great is because he made yuvi open.

Well arent we talking about being the best . 

N his competition is with others so small things wud be nit picked to see who was best. Just a process to find who is better

Chopra was an avg cricketer but a better opener then yuvi for sure

2 hours ago, kira said:

Really? His record isn't great? Were you comparing his record with australian or south african teams? Just blindly looking at records is where you are wrong, to get a better perspective you need to compare him with what he got at the start of his captaincy, what kind of players he had, and what type of players he introduced. A blind look at stats will only give you a narrow perspective, I have already said, ganguly's greatest achievement and his legacy is the team he left behind after taking over as captaincy. Do you think stephen flemming was a pathetic captain? Because his stats are bad.

Only Azhar was the casuality in test team . So he didnt lost much as compare to previous captain in test arena. 

Yes i agree his greatest achievement was the legacy of self belief he Left

But even dhoni left a legacy to indian cricket of being calm in tough situations whereas we always use to panic 

Kohli has already left a legacy for the standard of fitness 

2 hours ago, kira said:

Again, Really? did you even watch that series live? That aussie team is probably the greatest team in history, India on the other hand was a lower ranked team which barely won outside home and was whitewashed by south africa at home in 97-98 (I think). How can you even blame him for being cautious? You really like to view things from a narrow perspective, don't you? Indian fans seem to have unrealistic expectations from the team

Again M nitpicking thing coz we have to find the best 

He himself in an interview admitted he stretched   it a bit and was reilved when they won or else he wud have been bashed left right centre

And yes other captain have also done it. But the point is we have to put small points to see who is best. 

We are not comparing gangulys to only 90s we are comparing him to captain in 80s n post ganguly himself 

2 hours ago, kira said:

Ganguly is the one who selected dhoni (even dhoni aknowledged it in the movie ). Do you have any stats to show why dhoni should have been picked before parthiv or karthik? India tried a lot of keepers in those days until dhoni, wait this isn't even an argument worth responding, what were you thinking while typing this.

Yes he selected him and promoted him at 3, i didnt say he asked selectors not to pick him 

But his backing in some players cases went overboard

Dhoni perfomed on A tour year ago before getting selected and already the noise was high to select but Parthiv was persisted with despite his blunder down under for almost a yr . 

2 hours ago, kira said:

And you know that how? Is there any proof that he faked an injury or you are a conspiracy theorist like those media walas who spread this story.

Everyone gets injured why do u think the fuzz has always been around him only in that test. 

Look at the toss rahul dravid expression says it all . 

2 hours ago, kira said:

Again and again, repeating same statements, first of all what did you expect on a 5th day turning track, and why is ganguly being blamed for a batting failure anyway? Even if Ganguly's captaincy was bad in this match, does it negate the great things he has done? Like I said before, me saying that ganguly was the greatest captain in the last 30 years doesn't mean that he never made any mistake or blunder. Lastly I would like to ask you, if you are disputing Ganguly as being the greatest in the last 30 years then who is better than ganguly and why? 

That wasnt a turning track......

Again m saying when u have to find the best captain u hve nit pick situations like someone above has mentioned above his batting record

U can take only one logic that he changed the team

 

We are debating about the best so we ll see every area coz many were good and close by . 

 

 

For me It Was dravid .......

Won series abroad.....

i found him tactically better 

Better with field placing to pacer and even using of 3 spinners .

Have good result despite having a disturbed dressing room which ganguly was lucky not to have

As a batsman did better 

[Jimmy Cliff]

34 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

My mistake then .I thought Azhar was captain .Anyway the points the same.Its because none of them (including Azhar) haven't played Saffers apart from Dhoni and Ganguly .So I don't see how that's anything unique.

 

You can put such unique stats for anyone though.

 

Dhoni the only captain to have beaten NZL home and away in last 30 - RP years

 

Dravid the only Indian captain to win series wins in both England and West Indies.

 

Etc.

 

Also by that logic we didn't win a single series overseas (except minnows ) under Ganguly.And that was the period we had our greatest ever test team.

Wadekar already did that in '71 though Although I agree that one can come up with similar stats for most successful captains. Still Australia and SA have generally been the top sides of the last 2 decades so Ganguly being the only Indian captain to win full series against them does count in his favor. His W/L ratio against non Zim-Bang teams may be lower than Dhoni, Dravid and even Gavaskar but that does include series wins vs Aus and SA, series-deciding win vs Pak away in Rawalpindi and drawn Test series in England and Australia.

Edited May 20, 2017 by Jimmy Cliff