Azhar v Ganguly who was better ODI captain?

[Trichromatic]

If you keep match fixing issue aside, who was better captain in ODIs.

 

 

Azhar not only had slightly better record, but also won lot of finals.

[velu]

off-topic:-

virat kohlis record is betetr than ricky poting

 

[Jimmy Cliff]

Azhar had SRT at his peak. Ganguly didn't. That's the main reason why their records in finals are so different.

[mishra]

Comparing a cheat who deliberately sold matches to greatest captain of India is nothing but pure insult of Dada

[sandeep]

Azhar cheated.   That's it.  No further words needed.  

 

Ganguly was a good but not great captain, especially tactically.  Ganguly should get a lot of credit on the personnel side of things however.   He instituted a much-needed policy of giving newcomers at least 4-5 games to show what they can do.  Before him, the BCCI selectors were almost Pakistani-esque in having a short trigger finger with debutants and being inconsistent.   

[Nikhil_cric]

Ganguly was a better captain in Tests i suppose. Even Azhar winning LOI tournaments is massively overrated. If you actually look at the LOI tournaments won, it was usually because of peak sachin, before his 99 back injury and a very good Srinath etc. Also Ganguly captained India at a time when the competition was much tougher and the core of the team had changed. Also we stopped playing in Sharjah and there weren't many tri series at home either. Most of Ganguly's tri series were in SA/OZ/England or SL. 

[sandeep]

18 minutes ago, Nikhil_cric said:

Ganguly was a better captain in Tests i suppose. Even Azhar winning LOI tournaments is massively overrated. If you actually look at the LOI tournaments won, it was usually because of peak sachin, before his 99 back injury and a very good Srinath etc. Also Ganguly captained India at a time when the competition was much tougher and the core of the team had changed. Also we stopped playing in Sharjah and there weren't many tri series at home either. Most of Ganguly's tri series were in SA/OZ/England or SL. 

Ganguly was not that great a test captain either.  He was better than Dhoni in tests, but that's not saying much.  Gangu's field placings and bowler management was atrocious, most of the time.  I was sick of seeing India stick to spin at one end, pace at the other, 90% of the time, regardless of match situation, player match-ups etc.   And Gangu was always defensive and vanilla with his fielders.  

 

I think VVS would have been a better captain than Dravid or Gangu, but he never got the chance.  He blew it when he got an extended run at the #3 spot in the batting lineup after that Kolkat test.  Kept putting up breezy cameos of 30s and 40s instead of making the spot his own.  If he had done better, he may have had a shot at being test captain ahead of Dravid.  

 

 

Edited November 2, 2017 by sandeep

[Nikhil_cric]

3 minutes ago, sandeep said:

Ganguly was not that great a test captain either.  He was better than Dhoni in tests, but that's not saying much.  Gangu's field placings and bowler management was atrocious, most of the time.  I was sick of seeing India stick to spin at one end, pace at the other, 90% of the time, regardless of match situation, player match-ups etc.   And Gangu was always defensive and vanilla with his fielders.  

 

I think VVS would have been a better captain than Dravid or Gangu, but he never got the chance.  He blew it when he got an extended run at the #3 spot in the batting lineup after that Kolkat test.  Kept putting up breezy cameos of 30s and 40s instead of making the spot his own.  If he had done better, he may have had a shot at being test captain ahead of Dravid.  

 

 

I was actually comparing Ganguly to Azhar. Like you said Ganguly often gave deserving youngsters enough chances. But i thought his captaincy was pretty good both in England 2002 and australia 03/04 as well. Dhoni and azhar were clueless abroad. I have no idea how VVS would have fared. He did not come across as a natural leader at the time but then again neither did dravid.

[maniac]

Clearly Ganguly and I am not even taking the match fixing route to write off Azhar.

 

Azhar was the original king of “letting the game drift away”and being the most laid back and inactive captains on the field. In this modern age he would have been branded as “captain cool”for that but back then we knew him as a guy who got entrusted captaincy with the famous words “miyan captain banoge”?

 

Ganguly on the other hand from day 1 “tried” every thing he possibly could to improve the team combination and was very proactive in every aspect of the game. Sure he might have had his share of politics and moves that backfired but there was no doubt that as a captain he was leagues ahead of Azhar.

 

Azhar vs Ganguly the batsman would be a better comparison.

Edited November 2, 2017 by maniac

[mishra]

Before Dada, Indian players,Captains and Board used to be a pussy. Dada showed how to lead from front. How to give it back to oppositin, be it opposition player, opposition team, opposition captain, opposition Supporter or Board.

 

The reason we dont see so much praise in English media is because most of Indian English media guys just copy half the idea from actual English Media and actual English media is not going to forgive him for giving it back to ECB, English fans, English Team, Flintoff and specially to English media which unequivocally praised Flintoffs disgusting behavious on ground of so called "passion". His Lords Stunt may have been just for Flintoff and team but it was a check mate to English media

[Khota]

Azhar and Ganguly in same sentence? One cheated and other was the best captain India had.

[Pollack]

Ganguly was one of the besT captain of India. Azhar not so. End of thread.

[jusarrived]

Ganguly is very overrated as a captain , he was a leader though backed some of his fav players which payed off .

on field he was mostly clueless .

[jusarrived]

On 02/11/2017 at 3:57 PM, Jimmy Cliff said:

Azhar had SRT at his peak. Ganguly didn't. That's the main reason why their records in finals are so different.

Ganguly has 4-5 Indian greats at their peak . Still our best was a drawn test series in Aus against a depleted OZ side . We even lost our first ever Test series at home after 40 (?) years . 

 

[mishra]

9 minutes ago, jusarrived said:

Ganguly has 4-5 Indian greats at their peak . Still our best was a drawn test series in Aus against a depleted OZ side . We even lost our first ever Test series at home after 40 (?) years . 

 

So had Sachin and Dravid. Difference was Ganguly backed the pacers. Be it RP Singh or Irfan Pathan. Even with that mediocrity in bowling he managed to some much needed overseas wins and draws

[mishra]

And stat wise iirc, India played lot of games to ATG Aussies and invincible South Africans under his regime. We were not in the league of these two teams.

And on top of that, there were mighty Lankans. Our league was probably Lanka, Pakistan. No till Afridi became a bowler and Anwar/Inzi retired, we were never certain that we are going to win against Pakistan or Sri Lanka. England were not as good as they are now. SO we had just slight advantage against England.

[jusarrived]

1 minute ago, mishra said:

So had Sachin and Dravid. Difference was Ganguly backed the pacers. Be it RP Singh or Irfan Pathan. Even with that mediocrity in bowling he managed to some much needed overseas wins and draws

Which overseas wins under Ganguly ? we cudnt even win against Zim or WI under him . 

 

Tendulkar's team had no experience . Darvid , VVS or Ganguly where not the same players back then . its just like how we lost badly inspite of having Virat , Rahane , Pujara  who are all quality in our last overseas tours . 

 

As for Dravid , its under him we won 2 overseas series wins in England and WI . His record was good inspite of a short stint , I wudnt say the wins are entirely cos of his captaincy cos it was mostly the team he inherited from Ganguly . 

[jusarrived]

9 minutes ago, mishra said:

And stat wise iirc, India played lot of games to ATG Aussies and invincible South Africans under his regime. We were not in the league of these two teams.

And on top of that, there were mighty Lankans. Our league was probably Lanka, Pakistan. No till Afridi became a bowler and Anwar/Inzi retired, we were never certain that we are going to win against Pakistan or Sri Lanka. England were not as good as they are now. SO we had just slight advantage against England.

I will not blame him for not beating the ATG OZ's  , but had a side to beat a fairly weak side we played in 2001 . England was very weak and so where Kiwis . 

So why exactly is he a great captain , if we where at par with a Pak side which was in transition ? 

[mishra]

2 hours ago, jusarrived said:

Which overseas wins under Ganguly ? we cudnt even win against Zim or WI under him . 

 

Tendulkar's team had no experience . Darvid , VVS or Ganguly where not the same players back then . its just like how we lost badly inspite of having Virat , Rahane , Pujara  who are all quality in our last overseas tours . 

 

As for Dravid , its under him we won 2 overseas series wins in England and WI . His record was good inspite of a short stint , I wudnt say the wins are entirely cos of his captaincy cos it was mostly the team he inherited from Ganguly . 

Kuchh Bhi. Haan. Look at each away series under him. If you still think that we were strong side, Chk the scorecard. The "Strong" wont look that strong untill Dada had reigned in for few years as Captain

 

2001
======
Zimbabwe  1-1(2) in Flower/Streak era were stronger side. So a away drawn series wasnt that bad as captain
Sri Lanka 2-1 (3)- They used to and managed to beat us by over inning. One win away wasnt that bad. Chk the score card. Lankans were full of their ATG, India had Dravid and Ganguly. Bhajji was too young. I will take 2-1 any day

South Africa 1-0 (2). We did achieve one draw

2002
=======
West Indies 2-1 (5): You kidding me. Gayle, Lara, Chanderpaul, Hooper, Sarwan. they were solid bats. Only thing that was bad was their bowling. But thats where a belief among our bats came that they can play overseas. Pile up 500 runs.
England 0-1 (4): We won it.
Newzealand 2-0 (2): Board to be blamed. It was third away test series in calendar year and then Team arrived there on 4th. First test a week later. Complete utter failure by Board

2003/04
Australia 1-1(4): Whoever have followed the series (not Pakistani or not Australian) will agree that Australian were playing with 13 players. They bloody cheated. Still no one knows why of all, Bucknor such a respected umpiregave away so many incorrect decisions against India

2004
 Pakistan 2-1 (3): Pakistanis came back in second game after first loss but Ganguly captained last game and team simply decimated the Pakistan
Bangladesh 0-2 (2): Expected lines

2005
Zimbabwe: 0-2 (2): NOthing special but Zimbos were still okish. Decline had satrted

 

And now allmost the same team (if anything , it was stronger) under Dravid visited Paksitan in 2006 and lost the 3 match series 1-0.

And all of that is statistically. I am not going into how Dada irked whole Australia by maing Waugh wait. Here is one of the example why players gave 110% to Dada.

Quote

Ganguly said that during a match of that historic series, when Srinath was coming out of the field for something, Buchanan asked him rudely why he was doing that.

"It was not his (Buchanan's) business. Srinath told us in a team meeting that Buchanan had asked him that in a rude manner. Then we decided that we would show them... That's why I went out late for the toss in Vizag (third ODI in April)," said Ganguly.

Ganguly made Australia captain Steve Waugh wait for a few minutes on the pitch before coming out of the dressing room.

 

Edited November 3, 2017 by mishra

[mishra]

^ And now compare that behaviour of Ganguly for Srinath with that of Kohli bhaichara with pakistanis when they effectively raped Bhumrah in CT final.