Isn't Ganguly an EXTREMELY OVERRATED captain ??

[Mr. Wicket]

My friend' date=' you are the one misrepresenting the circumstances. IIRC after the 2007 WC fiasco, under Chappel and Dravid, when Chappell was booted, Dhoni took over and lead us to win the T20 WC.[/quote'] You're wrong. Dravid continued on as captain and led us to a ODI series win over South Africa a couple of months after. Check the facts and history books. The T20 was in September 2007, several months after.

And what does having an outstanding test series in England under Dravid have to do with Dhoni winning the T20 WC, when we practically went in with a differen squad ?

You're talking about the circumstances and are misinterpreting things (or simply showing your own lack of understanding here). You're portraying it as if Dhoni took over when the team was in turmoil following the 2007 WC elimination, with a lack of morale, senior/junior rifts, etc. This was not the case. Dhoni took over several months after the WC and as I've pointed out, by that time we had a test victory in England under our belts and a fairly settled ODI side following that tour. Dravid announced his resignation from captaincy in September - right before that he had elected out of the World T20, at which point Dhoni took over the captaincy there. So the idea that MSD didn't have a settled bunch of players and had serious issues in the team to contend with is rubbish.

[patriot]

Huh? After Chappell was given the boot, Dravid led us to two series victories-- in BD and in England. So how was Dhoni taking over from not a rosy circumstances? >>> You are referring to tests. We sucked in limited overs. We lost the ODis in England too under Dravid , before the T20 WC . And a poor team like WI can get into a T20 semis and strong team like Australia can be bundled out from the tournament very early. >> Aus is not the be all and end all of cricket - ODIs or T20s. Prior to the last champions trophy they were kicked out in the first round in the CTs, does that mean champion trophies prior to Aus winning were irrelevant and that only after they start doing well in T20 cricket, will T20 cricket be " real cricket " . And please WI is not a poor team. They are a very poor test team . But still a very dangerous ODI and T20 side. YOU JUST CANNOT EQUATE T20 WITH TESTS AND ODIS. I hope you understand that.

[Chandan]

We didn't suchk in ODIs. We won a tri series in Ireland against a strong SA squad. We lost the ODIs in England 3-4 but everyone knows that it was the umpiring errors which led to that. Our team was not that poor. And if Dhoni is such a good magician why did he lose to Australia 2-4 at home just after T20 WC? WI are very good ODI unit? Right. Where are they in the ICC table for ODIs? And I talk about tests because that is the only format which tests a player and skipper truly. T20s and inconsequencial ODIs are not that important, for players as well as fans (who love cricket as a sport).

[patriot]

We didn't suchk in ODIs. We won a tri series in Ireland against a strong SA squad. We lost the ODIs in England 3-4 but everyone knows that it was the umpiring errors which led to that. Our team was not that poor. And if Dhoni is such a good magician why did he lose to Australia 2-4 at home just after T20 WC? >>> Dhoni more than made up for that by beating Aus in Aus. Something we had'nt done in our history. IIRC under Ganguly we lost at home, 2-3 and got pumelled in OZ ( although we did reach the finals, where the 3rd team was Zimbabwe :--D ) WI are very good ODI unit? Right. Where are they in the ICC table for ODIs? >>> WI are not consistent, but they are very dangerous, in knockout formats. They beat SA in the 2003 WC in SA din't they ? They won a Champions trophy, din't they ? ICC rankings don't always depict the true picture, I remember us being ranked 8th , after the 2003 WC which was really weird. And I talk about tests because that is the only format which tests a player and skipper truly. T20s and inconsequencial ODIs are not that important, for players as well as fans (who love cricket as a sport). >> I agree. We havn't lost a Test under Dhoni and long may it continue, won 72 % of the games, and are yet to get freebies against minnows.

[chanakya]

patriot I will rephrase the question When did you start following the trials and tribulations of Indian cricket? On a parallel was Steve Waugh considered the greatest captain in Australia's cricketing history just after the 1999 world cup?

[Malcolm Merlyn]

It seems you wont take our word for what ganguly did for indian cricket.....go google it.....u will find what greats like gavaskar,ian chapppel,Richie benaud,geoffrey boycott,ravi shastri,EAS prasanna had to say about it.....and please dont come back and just quote bishen singh bedi on it....or sanjay manjrekar on that

[goose]

I can part understand some of his critics but one cannot deny that Ganguly the captain was an unequivocal success. He was what India needed at that time. I liken his time in charge to that of Nasser Hussain. Both injected much needed steel into their teams. Both had their critics, some within the playing XI no less. Vaughan is already being spoken of as an all-time English great and I expect Dhoni will get the same accolade by the time he's done but keen followers of the game understand the worth of Sourav and Nasser.

[Anakin]

He's already won India a World Cup.

Sums up this thread really :hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:

[ViruRulez]

Dhoni is good but you cannot under estimate Dada.. Indian team learnt fearless cricket for the first time under Ganguly .. the team is improving under Dhoni but Dada is also responsible for the attitude of the present Indian team

[patriot]

patriot I will rephrase the question When did you start following the trials and tribulations of Indian cricket? On a parallel was Steve Waugh considered the greatest captain in Australia's cricketing history just after the 1999 world cup?

I started watching cricket in the 98/99 season. Azhar's captaincy was nothing to write home about. SRT's was a disaster. WRT to Steve Waugh being the greatest captain in Australia's history , I don't necessarily agree with that. He was a very good bat under pressure. But he had a team that would have anywayz steamrolled opponents irrespective of who captained. Taylor - AB's succesor and S. Waugh's predecessor was a brilliant attacking captain. AB did an excellent job of building a team after Chappell's superstars retired, probably leading them through their toughest phase - won a world cup in the subcontinent against most expectations - but if you are trying to draw comparisions here with Ganguly - I think it would be futile because like most Aussie captains AB lead from the front with the bat, was one of the great all time bats. Avg of 50 + ( in an era when it was a relative rarity). Ganguly as captain with the bat was AN ABSOLUTE FAILURE for a large part, avg in the mid 30's for most of hs captaincy ..and was practically a walking wicket for a whole season. Yet it was Laxman's place in the side that was always one failure away from being questioned. Like a shameless passenger Ganguly continued to hang around - not that he was tactically some Mike Brearly or something. Twice abroad against the weakest test sides ( WI and Zim ) we took the lead only to surrender it and lose ( against WI) and draw the series ( against Zim). As I have repeated a zillion times on this thread apart from one good season 2002-2003, where we reached CT and WC finals - we won NOTHING even at home in ODIS except against Zim and the Natwest. Lost some 20 finals in a row ? if you take out the 30 odd games that we played against minnows ....we had a pathetic 40% win/loss ratio against non- minnows. All this " inspiration " and "motivation" under Ganguly is BS of the highest order, nothing but a stupid myth. Pity that he could'nt motivate himself to bat decently. The issue I have with Ganguly, is his attitiude. That Indian cricket was his pop's property, and that he had the right to be in the side till he wanted, however lousy a performer he may be. I have never seen any other cricketer go on and on...about how he scored runs in the past, whenever his place was under scanner. He shamelessly went to suck upto Pawar ( after his godfather Dalmiya, was powerless in BCCI) to put up a case for his place in the side. what sort of influence is this expected to have on youngsters ? His last 35 odd ODIS..he scored at a pathetic strike rate of 68, just to keep his place in the side. This same attitude is shown when being the worst performing batsmen in KKR in both the editions of IPL , he continues to stubbornly hang around , not getting the most obvious hints from the owners - and then shamelessly exploitng the emotions of the gullible Bengali/ Kolkata public to threaten SRK/KKR.. Any other cricketer who has served as captain of a country would have just walked out. Leading from the front with the bat or keeping calm in tense match situations or having a superb success rate as captain - Dhoni has shown far more than Ganguly. Ganguly has failed in the first two abysmally.

[Chandan]

What a strange logic! When a team wins, you don't give credit to the captain as it'd have steamrolled any side under anyone. But when a team does badly and fails, the entire blame is that of the captain? Do you even understand what captaincy is?

[patriot]

What a strange logic! When a team wins, you don't give credit to the captain as it'd have steamrolled any side under anyone. But when a team does badly and fails, the entire blame is that of the captain?

What sort of twisted convoluted understanding is that ? When did I say that ? Waugh was a tough as nails performer ..a legendary batsman..his battles with Ambrose and Co at their peak is one of the greatest cricketing folklores. BUT ..he had a team with 2 of the greatest BOWLERS of all time in Warne and Mcgrath and the greatest WK /Batsmen in Gilchrist. 3 once in a lifetime cricketers. That makes lifer easier is it ? When his team needed him in crunch situations Steve Waugh has delivered with the bat...you can't deny that- that's what expected out of captains. Ganguly as captain with the bat has been ABSOLUTELY MEDIOCRE ?? Do you understand , now ???

[Chandan]

What sort of twisted convoluted understanding is that ? When did I say that ? Waugh was a tough as nails performer ..a legendary batsman..his battles with Ambrose and Co at their peak is one of the greatest cricketing folklores. BUT ..he had a team with 2 of the greatest BOWLERS of all time in Warne and Mcgrath and the greatest WK /Batsmen in Gilchrist. 3 once in a lifetime cricketers. That makes lifer easier is it ? When his team needed him in crunch situations Steve Waugh has delivered with the bat...you can't deny that- that's what expected out of captains. Ganguly as captain with the bat has been ABSOLUTELY MEDIOCRE ?? Do you understand , now ???

Are you discussing Ganguly's captaincy or Ganguly's abilty as batsman when leading?

[patriot]

Are you discussing Ganguly's captaincy or Ganguly's abilty as batsman when leading?

Its funny that you question my ability of understanding captaincy, when you yourself are so confused about it. A captain who doesn't perform as a player because he is captain, is not fit to captain the side. Ganguly the famous " inspirer" cum " motivator" was a walkng wicket in tests for a long time when he captained and had his tussel with Chappell who had asked him to quit. His cowardly , myserious injury when he din't get the wicket he wanted at Nagpur in '04 Sep is something that a Waugh or Dhoni would never do. Waugh/Ponting for a great part of their captaincy were leading a team that had many legends, but they themselves lead from the front with the bat and performed at crunch times.

[Lord]

Its funny that you question my ability of understanding captaincy, when you yourself are so confused about it. A captain who doesn't perform as a player because he is captain, is not fit to captain the side. Ganguly the famous " inspirer" cum " motivator" was a walkng wicket in tests for a long time when he captained and had his tussel with Chappell who had asked him to quit. His cowardly , myserious injury when he din't get the wicket he wanted at Nagpur in '04 Sep is something that a Waugh or Dhoni would never do. Waugh/Ponting for a great part of their captaincy were leading a team that had many legends, but they themselves lead from the front with the bat and performed at crunch times.

HOW DO U KNOW?Ganguly produced a physio's report saying he was unfit n he DID NOT play in the next match too.so how u know he was fit n lying n Dhoni has already skipped an important series citing 'fatigue'.

[Chandan]

Its funny that you question my ability of understanding captaincy, when you yourself are so confused about it. A captain who doesn't perform as a player because he is captain, is not fit to captain the side. Ganguly the famous " inspirer" cum " motivator" was a walkng wicket in tests for a long time when he captained and had his tussel with Chappell who had asked him to quit. His cowardly , myserious injury when he din't get the wicket he wanted at Nagpur in '04 Sep is something that a Waugh or Dhoni would never do. Waugh/Ponting for a great part of their captaincy were leading a team that had many legends, but they themselves lead from the front with the bat and performed at crunch times.

So finally you are questioning Ganguly's batting and not his captaincy skills? Ricky Ponting is leading from the front, has phenomenal win-loss ratio too. But is he a good captain?

[Texy]

Dada is a born leader...there is no comparison

[chanakya]

Leading from the front with the bat or keeping calm in tense match situations or having a superb success rate as captain - Dhoni has shown far more than Ganguly. Ganguly has failed in the first two abysmally.

John Michael Brearley Considered one of the best English Captains, yet did not deserve his place in the side at all for any of his cricketing abilities other than his man management.

[The Outsider]

Ganguly really does draw some extreme and irrational responses - has done so throughout his career and after his retirement as well. He was a good captain - the world has seen better, even India maybe. The circumstances in which he took over captaincy were some of the toughest and he along with Wright was instrumental in paving the way for an Indian comeback and turning new corners. Since I don't have all the dressing room insights, based on the little I know and from Wright's book it was a partnership and it's very difficult to segregate one decision as Ganguly's brilliance and the other as Wright's foolishness. Their careers as captain and coach ran for roughly the same time period. What the duo brought to the Indian side was proper role assignment and from that the players gained in confidence. People go on harping about the divine motivational skills that Ganguly was supposed to have - that's delusional. For the first time professionalism and role assignment became important. If Harbhajan was noted as a good attacking bowler before the '01 series, he was also given attacking field placings to execute his strengths. A few biffs over mid wicket did not prompt an instruction to him to start firing darts. If Sehwag was identified as a genuine stroke player with the stillest head around while executing his audacious shots he was thrown in first on debut against Pollock and co. and then as opener on an overcast Trent Bridge morning. People might say this was some mystical motivation, but there was a proper and sound reasoning behind these decisions. Indian cricket had seen times where it's premier bowler and hard hitting allrounder was dropped for an irresponsible stroke and on another occasion stripped of captaincy. Clarity of thought and a stop to the desire to find a scapegoat for every poor performance was something new brought in the Indian cricket team. When the music is over and the lights are turned off, everyone has made his own destiny. Both Ganguly and Dravid debuted under Azhar's captaincy but made their own path, so did Tendulkar under Srikkanth (who IMO was a very good captain who had his captaincy sawed off harshly). Ganguly did a lot for Indian cricket and the Indian team - we started winning tests abroad, did well in a few ODI championships, but could not take the Indian team ready for new challenges and achievements to the next step. We would still invariably feel to win a series abroad, we would still lose in the finals. But some people just cannot stop at that. They start fabricating half truths like we wont the CT under Ganguly(we shared it), Dravid would have been dropped from ODIs but for Ganguly(I've shattered this myth to pieces in some earlier thread - Dravid was averaging in the 40s and striking in the 70s for 2 years before he became WK). The lack of perspective is from both ends of the spectrum in case of Ganguly - a personality leading to opinionated fans. Every captain/coach has a shelf life. Wright realized his was over, Ganguly did not. At a time when he could barely buy a run and the team was struggling he would point to the 10,000 international runs he had made instead of the recent scorecards. He thought it would get over - he was a fighter and had fought many odds but as many batsmen of the past like Gower, Viswanath, Amarnath etc. will tell you, there are times when you just cannot score runs. It's a cruel sport. Ganguly kept denying this and the team started nosediving leading to our first loss against Australia at home after 35 years and then a terrible series against Pakistan. As a leader his last minute pull out at Nagpur was unsavory. But once he made peace with giving up captaincy, he made a superb comeback to the side as a batsman. As a batsman I would describe that phase of his career as his best - better than his first 4 years when he was averaging close to 50. Some innings he played during the time like his 80 odd at Kanpur, the 60 odd in South Africa with the tail, and the century at Mohali were of as high a caliber as seen during our times. So is Ganguly overrated as a captain? Depends on who you ask.

[patriot]

Ganguly really does draw some extreme and irrational responses - has done so throughout his career and after his retirement as well. He was a good captain - the world has seen better, even India maybe. The circumstances in which he took over captaincy were some of the toughest and he along with Wright was instrumental in paving the way for an Indian comeback and turning new corners. Since I don't have all the dressing room insights, based on the little I know and from Wright's book it was a partnership and it's very difficult to segregate one decision as Ganguly's brilliance and the other as Wright's foolishness. Their careers as captain and coach ran for roughly the same time period. What the duo brought to the Indian side was proper role assignment and from that the players gained in confidence. People go on harping about the divine motivational skills that Ganguly was supposed to have - that's delusional. For the first time professionalism and role assignment became important. If Harbhajan was noted as a good attacking bowler before the '01 series, he was also given attacking field placings to execute his strengths. A few biffs over mid wicket did not prompt an instruction to him to start firing darts. If Sehwag was identified as a genuine stroke player with the stillest head around while executing his audacious shots he was thrown in first on debut against Pollock and co. and then as opener on an overcast Trent Bridge morning. People might say this was some mystical motivation, but there was a proper and sound reasoning behind these decisions. Indian cricket had seen times where it's premier bowler and hard hitting allrounder was dropped for an irresponsible stroke and on another occasion stripped of captaincy. Clarity of thought and a stop to the desire to find a scapegoat for every poor performance was something new brought in the Indian cricket team. When the music is over and the lights are turned off, everyone has made his own destiny. Both Ganguly and Dravid debuted under Azhar's captaincy but made their own path, so did Tendulkar under Srikkanth (who IMO was a very good captain who had his captaincy sawed off harshly). Ganguly did a lot for Indian cricket and the Indian team - we started winning tests abroad, did well in a few ODI championships, but could not take the Indian team ready for new challenges and achievements to the next step. We would still invariably feel to win a series abroad, we would still lose in the finals. But some people just cannot stop at that. They start fabricating half truths like we wont the CT under Ganguly(we shared it), Dravid would have been dropped from ODIs but for Ganguly(I've shattered this myth to pieces in some earlier thread - Dravid was averaging in the 40s and striking in the 70s for 2 years before he became WK). The lack of perspective is from both ends of the spectrum in case of Ganguly - a personality leading to opinionated fans. Every captain/coach has a shelf life. Wright realized his was over, Ganguly did not. At a time when he could barely buy a run and the team was struggling he would point to the 10,000 international runs he had made instead of the recent scorecards. He thought it would get over - he was a fighter and had fought many odds but as many batsmen of the past like Gower, Viswanath, Amarnath etc. will tell you, there are times when you just cannot score runs. It's a cruel sport. Ganguly kept denying this and the team started nosediving leading to our first loss against Australia at home after 35 years and then a terrible series against Pakistan. As a leader his last minute pull out at Nagpur was unsavory. But once he made peace with giving up captaincy, he made a superb comeback to the side as a batsman. As a batsman I would describe that phase of his career as his best - better than his first 4 years when he was averaging close to 50. Some innings he played during the time like his 80 odd at Kanpur, the 60 odd in South Africa with the tail, and the century at Mohali were of as high a caliber as seen during our times. So is Ganguly overrated as a captain? Depends on who you ask.

Excellent balanced post. As a critic of Ganguly, I probably look more at what I have pointed out in bold in your post above. Besides that, I felt he simply din't have the " motivational " ability ( that some of his deluded fans keep raving about) to win India crunch games. We kept gettting humiliated endlessly in the big games. It was so expected. We lost some 20 finals in a row. Also his poor temper on the field cost us winning the series Test series in WI in 2002 after taking a lead, ditto in Zimbabwe in 2001. I just hated when he yelled at Srinath. Dhoni on the other hand comes across as a cool cucumber and far shrewder capain , who's street smartness goes way beyond petty tactics like coming late for the toss to frustrate an opposing captain. ( some deluded Ganguly fans think this lead a pi$$ed of Steve Waugh to make frustrated decisions on the field in THAT series.) . I believe alot that's attributed to his so called greatness as captain..is a bunch of myths. Lame myths.