Was ganguly India's greatest Test captain?

[Ultimate_Game]

I can't speak for history of Indian cricket but from what I've seen - Azhar, Tendulkar, Ganguly, Dravid, Dhoni (Kohli is too green to be considered at the moment) - I would rank the top 3 as follows...

 

Tests: Ganguly, Dhoni, Dravid

Odis: Dhoni, a huge gulf, Azhar/Ganguly

 

The reason Azhar is on par with Ganguly in odis is coz Azhar somehow managed to win the tourneys whereas Ganguly found it tough to win tourneys as a captain. If not for the finals record, Ganguly would be ahead of Azhar.

[BeautifulGame]

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.

 

Considering that only Ganguly and MSD played against SA , I don't see how it does matter.

 

Dravid won 2 series wins away , Dhoni had 2 or 3 (but a weak WI among them),Kohli should surpass both of them whereas Ganguly had none.

 

And Ganguly had the best team among the 3 .

 

 

[Khota]

Ganguly was good. He was responsible for the transformation of the team when Indians also started sleding back. He had guts and was a tough person. He had some other good qualities too. tendulkar and Dravid had flaws like they always supported their state players but Ganguly's strongest point was that he did not show any such preference for his state players. He was very fair. Taking his shirt off and waiving it was something wrong but overall he was very good.

[BeautifulGame]

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Edited May 21, 2017 by BeautifulGame

[BeautifulGame]

2 hours ago, sarchasm said:

Dhoni-tards doesn't insult Dhoni.

You have every right to disagree with your fellow members and explain your perspective.However, you are not free to attack, degrade insult or personal abuse other posters.

http://www.indiancricketfans.com/announcement/18-general-rules-posting-guidelines/

 

 

Whether Dhoni or Sachin or Kohli the rules are the same.

 

 

Edited May 21, 2017 by BeautifulGame

[Rightarmfast]

He wasnt India's best Test captain. He was Asia's best test captain ever! He transformed Indian cricket and he transformed the psychy of players

[Number]

2 hours ago, sarchasm said:

Dhoni's captaincy in tests was as good (or bad) as Tendulkar. Two things stood out again and again when Dhoni skippered in tests:

 

1) His cluelessness

 

2) His indifference

 

 

Agree. He got decent results when senior players were in prime form. As soon as those players lost form, he was exposed.

Even with the weakest of teams in the history, we were not whitewashed 4-0 like we did in his time.

And worst part was that he had no clue what to do.

Only in a country like India a captain can get away saying this about away test losses

Quote

It is just to improve your cricket, go and visit places, try to prove a point, because maybe 80% we will play in India, maybe 70%.  So it is very important to not get very critical about the technical aspect, [but] to go out there and enjoy cricket

The worst Indian test captain.

[Jimmy Cliff]

3 hours ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

Considering that only Ganguly and MSD played against SA , I don't see how it does matter.

 

Dravid won 2 series wins away , Dhoni had 2 or 3 (but a weak WI among them),Kohli should surpass both of them whereas Ganguly had none.

 

And Ganguly had the best team among the 3 .

 

 

Erm no. Kohli and Kumble have led in series against SA and Aus at home as well. Dravid and Dhoni took over a side that knew how to win Tests overseas. Ganguly took over a team that had won ONE Test outside India in 14 years! Under him, we finally started winning Tests away regularly- first against a decent Zim side (in '01), a bloody good SL side in their own conditions (with Ganguly himself leading the way with 98* in the 4th innings) and our first Test win in WI in 26 years in PoS.

 

He followed that up with drawn series in England and Australia (a decent wk away from winning the series) and led the side in the series-deciding win in Rawalpindi. And that's just away. At home we beat the GOAT Australian side as well as SA.

 

Disagree on the best team bit as well. Our team from 08-11 was the best Indian team. That side had a WC opening pair, a solid middle-order, our best ever WK-batsman and most importantly a seamer bowling at nearly WC-level for 3-4 years in Zak.

Edited May 21, 2017 by Jimmy Cliff

[BeautifulGame]

 

49 minutes ago, Jimmy Cliff said:

Erm no. Kohli and Kumble have led in series against SA and Aus at home as well. Dravid and Dhoni took over a side that knew how to win Tests overseas. Ganguly took over a team that had won ONE Test outside India in 14 years! Under him, we finally started winning Tests away regularly- first against a decent Zim side (in '01), a bloody good SL side in their own conditions (with Ganguly himself leading the way with 98* in the 4th innings) and our first Test win in WI in 26 years in PoS.

 

 

 

He followed that up with drawn series in England and Australia (a decent wk away from winning the series) and led the side in the series-deciding win in Rawalpindi. And that's just away. At home we beat the GOAT Australian side as well as SA.

 

 

 

Disagree on the best team bit as well. Our team from 08-11 was the best Indian team. That side had a WC opening pair, a solid middle-order, our best ever WK-batsman and most importantly a seamer bowling at nearly WC-level for 3-4 years in Zak.

 

 

 

 

I don't consider among or rate Kumble that good as a captain.Thats why I didn't mention him.

 

 

And Kohli has beaten them 3-0.Thats my point, arbitrarily putting a condition like beating SA or Australia doesn't mean much imo.

 

Our team from 2000 was our best .The 2008-11 didn't have quality spinners.Kumble at his best was a massive difference maker.

 

Also all of the fab 5 were at their peak in 2000-2005 than in 2008-11.

 

Also I would contest that SA were the 2nd best during Ganguly.

 

Both India and Pakistan were better than South Africa in 2000s .

Edited May 21, 2017 by BeautifulGame

[Trichromatic]

1 hour ago, Number said:

Agree. He got decent results when senior players were in prime form. As soon as those players lost form, he was exposed.

Even with the weakest of teams in the history, we were not whitewashed 4-0 like we did in his time.

And worst part was that he had no clue what to do.

Only in a country like India a captain can get away saying this about away test losses

The worst Indian test captain.

It's not just about weak team. He just kept repeating same thing again and again even we were whitewashed. 

[jf1gp_1]

11 hours ago, express bowling said:

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.

Glad someone wrote that. Gangulys captaincy isnt about number, here is a man who has been handed over captaincy after the biggest scandal that hit Indian cricket. Every match was looked at with suspicion and mind you we were a garbage team. Yes we were a garbage team back then no better than todays BD (the only thing we had was Sachin) and we were treated like garbage by one and all (even SL would beat the crap out of our backside).

 

Ganguly brought in a winner attitude (all the gambirs and kohlis have Saurav to thank for it), no more being gentleman we were there to win and he would do anything for a win. He brought in rookies out of no where zaheer, nehra, yuvi, kaif and above everyone Sehwag gave them the confidence to perform and all delivered.

 

His captaincy is not about numbers its about change in outlook and hence among the Indian captains i have seen, he was the best.  

 

 

[Pollack]

Ganguly was the best Indian captain after kapil till today. His contribution to India be it ODI or test cannot be reflected in stats. F.U.L.L S.T.O.P.

[Trichromatic]

5 minutes ago, jf1gp_1 said:

Glad someone wrote that. Gangulys captaincy isnt about number, here is a man who has been handed over captaincy after the biggest scandal that hit Indian cricket. Every match was looked at with suspicion and mind you we were a garbage team. Yes we were a garbage team back then no better than todays BD (the only thing we had was Sachin) and we were treated like garbage by one and all (even SL would beat the crap out of our backside).

 

Ganguly brought in a winner attitude (all the gambirs and kohlis have Saurav to thank for it), no more being gentleman we were there to win and he would do anything for a win. He brought in rookies out of no where zaheer, nehra, yuvi, kaif and above everyone Sehwag gave them the confidence to perform and all delivered.

 

His captaincy is not about numbers its about change in outlook and hence among the Indian captains i have seen, he was the best.  

 

 

That happened even during Ganguly's time if you're talking about ODIs. We dominated them in tests. Ganguly was poor ODI captain and we didn't improve much under him.

 

Difference between our 90s team and 2000s team was the set of batsmen we had to perform away and Ganguly had not much contribution towards them. If you look at 90s team, it was full of home track bullies. Batsmen who could average 50 at home but averaged in 20s in most countries. Then once Dravid, Tendulkar and VVS started performing, we had enough batting power to fight in matches away, which meant we could draw games and it appeared that team had fighting spirit. Apart from that I don't much contribution from Ganguly under whom even Zimbabwe gave us tough time.

 

Ganguly led once of the best batting line up in history of test cricket in peak form. Sehwag, Dravid, Tendulkar and VVS. WIth that kind of line up in form, most captain won't do worse than what Ganguly did. 

 

We tend to give credit to Ganguly for fighting spirit because we saw our batsmen fighting in game, but if you look at matches, like Kolkata 2001 against Aussies, not sure what was Ganguly's contribution towards type of inning which VVS and Dravid played. Nothing at all. We didn't lose in Aus in 2004 and SRT scored 241 and VVS 178 which was just way superior batting and nothing to do with the leader. He did set tone of series in first match though.  However his contribution is overrated. 

[BeautifulGame]

1 hour ago, Number said:

Agree. He got decent results when senior players were in prime form. As soon as those players lost form, he was exposed.

Even with the weakest of teams in the history, we were not whitewashed 4-0 like we did in his time.

And worst part was that he had no clue what to do.

Only in a country like India a captain can get away saying this about away test losses

The worst Indian test captain.

Dhoni's biggest issue was he was very bad at captaining Pacers in test cricket .

 

For me Dhoni was very good at captaining spinners but Zak always played a big role in our overseas tours and was our unofficial bowling captain imo.

Dhoni got kinda messed up in that regard after Zak injury and retirement.

[Jimmy Cliff]

43 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

I don't consider among or rate Kumble that good as a captain.Thats why I didn't mention him.

Ok.

 

Quote

And Kohli has beaten them 3-0.

But couldn't beat Australia. Unlike Ganguly who beat both.
 

Quote

Our team from 2000 was our best .The 2008-11 didn't have quality spinners.Kumble at his best was a massive difference maker.

 

We had Harbhajan performing at a pretty decent level from 08-11. Look up our wins in Galle, Hamilton, Durban etc. And oh Kumble wasn't at his best under Ganguly either. Kumble best years were in the 90s.

 

Quote

Also all of the fab 5 were at their peak in 2000-2005 than in 2008-11.

This applies only to Dravid and to an extent Viru. Tendulkar was fine up until 2002 but was dire in 2003-05. Whereas he was fantastic from 2008 up until the 2011 WC. Laxman in 08-11 was just as good if not better. Even Viru delivered most of his high impact performances in 08-10 (201 in Galle, 83 in Chennai, 293 vs SL, Series leveling 165 vs SA in 2010). Plus we had Gambo who was WC and our best ever WK-batsman. It was only Dravid who had significantly regressed.

[Number]

39 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

Dhoni's biggest issue was he was very bad at captaining Pacers in test cricket .

 

For me Dhoni was very good at captaining spinners but Zak always played a big role in our overseas tours and was our unofficial bowling captain imo.

Dhoni got kinda messed up in that regard after Zak injury and retirement.

Agree. 

And to me captaining spinners in India is not a big deal at all.

[Ankit_sharma03]

1 hour ago, Jimmy Cliff said:

 And oh Kumble wasn't at his best under Ganguly either. Kumble best years were in the 90s.

Kumble 2nd peek post 90s started after tour down under ganguly so he was at his peek under ganguly to for a considerable amount of time 

[Jimmy Cliff]

7 minutes ago, Ankit_sharma03 said:

Kumble 2nd peek post 90s started after tour down under ganguly so he was at his peek under ganguly to for a considerable amount of time 

Ganguly played his last Test as captain in March 2005 so this "peak" lasted for barely 15 months in his 5 year tenure.

[Pollack]

38 minutes ago, Prince_ said:

None of of the above Indian captains were that good to be completely honest. All of them r almost nothing infront of the great imran Khan. 

No one's taking bait.   You should've used Sarfaraz for some possibility of it. 

[SLICKR392]

It's pretty upsetting if Ganguly was our best Test captain with that mediocre stats he has for a big team like India. Dhoni being at the lower end as Test captain.