Ganguly as test captain : Overrated?

[Precambrian]

Saurav Ganguly is almost universally hailed as one of the best captains India has ever had. While I have no doubt about his player management skills, his ability to inspire youngsters and his charisma, I am not quite sure these reflected in actual results as far as the country is concerned. Make no mistake, I like Ganguly's aggressiveness, street-smart tactics and his boldness to break tradition and stand eye-in-eye with his stronger opponents, but having considered all that, was he really as successful as he is thought to be? Before we venture further let's look at the raw statistics : Ganguly as captain: Matches Played - 49 Won - 21 Lost - 13 Drawn - 15 Series Played - 20 Won - 10 Lost - 5 Drawn - 5 Certainly an incredible set of numbers those, prima facie.. but I intend to do a bit of statistical filtering. Removing the minnows (Bang and Zim) Matches W 12 L 12 D 14 Series W 5 L 5 D 4 The numbers almost readily lose some of their sheen. A further break down into home and away : Series Home: W : 4 L : 1 D : 2 Away: W : 1 L : 4 D : 2 The one away series win came in the summer of 2004 when a Sehwag inspired team beat Pakistan 2-1. Ganguly played only 1 match in that series, although to his credit, it was the decider which we won. There was a creditable draw in Australia, who were the World Champions. Other than that, save for a draw against England in 2002, there weren't really anything to take home from India's performance overseas. Not to forget this Indian team was in the ascendancy, primarily owing to the star studded middle order peaking. There is always the talk that India managed to win overseas more under him which I don't think stats agree with. In addition, they managed to lose at home to Australia, in which was the most shameful episode of him ruling himself out after seeing a green pitch at Nagpur. The 2001 series against Australia remain his greatest till date but I believe undue weightage is given to that series while analyzing his captaincy.

[bangladeshifan]

now compare it with pre-ganguly era records. u will get ur answer. /thread

[King Tendulkar]

No. Miles better then Dhoni. Dada did not have the weapons at his disposal like Dhoni, if he did would have done amazing stuff. Also like Ranatunga did for SL, he turned a timid mentality to a confrontational, in your face, up for it mentaility. No backward step came from dadas leadership

[saneindian]

Compare our away record from 95-2000 with that of 2000-05 and you would know the difference he made to the side. '95-'00 - 20 away tests played, lost 9, won zilch '00-'05- 27 away tests, 9 won 11 lost By 1999-2000, we were officially the worst team in the world, ranked even lower than Zim. Also consider the situation under which he took over the team, we were thrashed 3-0 in Australia, lost a home series after ages, out test captain had relinquished captaincy and then immediately after he took over, we had the match fixing scandal, perhaps the lowest point of Indian cricket. To rebuild the team and take it to number 2 was a huge achievement. Calling him an overrated captain is insulting a true legend of Indian cricket.

[Number]

W L W/L border 32 22 1.45 , taylor 26 13 2.00, ponting 48 16 3.00 Yet , If you ask Aussies who have watched their Cricket in last 3 decades. They will rate them Border > Taylor > Punter. Or Border = Taylor > Punter. Sometimes or I'd say most of the times match results are not the best criteria to judge the captain.

[rkt.india]

Calling him an overrated captain is insulting a true legend of Indian cricket.

Check your PM.

[Sachin=GOD]

He is the best Indian Captain I have seen.

[rkt.india]

He is the best Indian Captain I have seen.

Best Indian captain maybe, but it does not mean he cant be overrated.

[Trichromatic]

No. Miles better then Dhoni. Dada did not have the weapons at his disposal like Dhoni, if he did would have done amazing stuff. Also like Ranatunga did for SL, he turned a timid mentality to a confrontational, in your face, up for it mentaility. No backward step came from dadas leadership

Bowling attack was probably better during Dada's captaincy. He is certainly not overrated. Best Indian captain.

[achilles]

He's as overrated as Dhoni the batsman in Tests. Actually, even that is a poor comparison.

[Precambrian]

Compare our away record from 95-2000 with that of 2000-05 and you would know the difference he made to the side. '95-'00 - 20 away tests played, lost 9, won zilch '00-'05- 27 away tests, 9 won 11 lost By 1999-2000, we were officially the worst team in the world, ranked even lower than Zim. Also consider the situation under which he took over the team, we were thrashed 3-0 in Australia, lost a home series after ages, out test captain had relinquished captaincy and then immediately after he took over, we had the match fixing scandal, perhaps the lowest point of Indian cricket. To rebuild the team and take it to number 2 was a huge achievement. Calling him an overrated captain is insulting a true legend of Indian cricket.

Removing Bangers and Zimbos, away wins come down to 5 during Ganguly's captaincy: vs SL in Kandy - 01 vs WI at POS 02 vs England 02 vs Aus 04 9Adelaide) vs Pakistan - Rawalpindi Don't forget that the batsmen had a big role to play - his captaincy coincided with blossoming of Laxman, Dravid and as ever Tendulkar was there to shore it up...

[Crookbond]

http://stats.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/28114.html?captain_involve=2024;class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=default;result=1;template=results;type=allround As a captain if you can have a player who can average a 104 over 11 matches (away) and 102 over 21 matches (home + away), I believe that is a huge bonus.

[saneindian]

Removing Bangers and Zimbos, away wins come down to 5 during Ganguly's captaincy: vs SL in Kandy - 01 vs WI at POS 02 vs England 02 vs Aus 04 9Adelaide) vs Pakistan - Rawalpindi Don't forget that the batsmen had a big role to play - his captaincy coincided with blossoming of Laxman, Dravid and as ever Tendulkar was there to shore it up...

Which other Indian captain has won 5 away tests against the top 7 sides considering that we have won a grand total of 28 away wins against these sides in our test history? As for your point about our batsmen winning those tests, all successful sides will have a few batsmen and bowlers performing well in those wins. Should the captains like Waugh, Taylor, Border, Lloyd be given no credit at all?

[vamos_rafa]

No. Miles better then Dhoni. Dada did not have the weapons at his disposal like Dhoni, if he did would have done amazing stuff. Also like Ranatunga did for SL, he turned a timid mentality to a confrontational, in your face, up for it mentaility. No backward step came from dadas leadership

I disagree. Dada had a much better bowling attack at his disposal. That was the period when every series gave us a new fast bowler. The likes of Pathan, Zaheer, Nehra, Balaji etc have had a role to play in some series or the other. also, from a batting perspective, I would say that it evens out. Under Dada's reign, Dravid was at the peak of his batting while Sachin was at his peak under MS. Laxamn has always been the sankatmochan whilst the only difference could be the perforamnce of Sehwag specially on abroad tours. But, more than his tactics or anythjing, Ganguly should be hailed for turning our bunch of pussy cats into tigers. :hatsoff:

[jf1gp_1]

What those numbers do not show is the change in attitude on how we approached a game. Pre saurav we were a set of eat any **** servered kind of team, he brought an attitude made us mentally strong , brought a belief we can win from any position and that's what saurav should be remembered for not the meaningless number all the above are debating

[vvvslaxman]

. As an onfield captain and player as captain he was below average. But i won't buy the theory he had a poor side. He had young and fit guys some of whom were at absolute peak . Some bright young prospects came good nicely . Even as early as in 2001 series against Australia he was sliced and diced by everyone for his poor batting as captain. He was better than his predecessors. He is mostly known for his aggressive attitude as captain which was not there before from us. He expressed his aggressive attitude by coming late to toss, yelling at his premiere bowler like Srinath on the ground (in this case he yelled back at him). Lot of his aggression got something to do with his inborn ego. They were not entirely beneficial to India. Forcing Dravid/Laxman/Parthiv/Sehwag everyone to open except himself who sucked at the middle order as well.

[ravishingravi]

A code monkey could become a connoisseur and lover of cricket if stats ( that too out of context ) were all that the great game offered for judgement. After watching King Dhoni in action, I would say underrated. The greatest captain India has had and Dhoni essentially fed off the team that he built.

[PaceAttack]

No, I think he is the best captain we have ever had. I am saying this not because he had the best cricketing brain, but he had the eye to pick the right talent who can win matches for him. He was the first captain who believed in picking the aggressive players who can give it back to the opposition. We can still see him talking about picking the pace bowlers who can pick him wickets. I have never seen him backing a player like Vinay kumar or Praveen kumar(Although he picked Bhuvaneshwar kumar but he bowls 135-140s). In the last England tour you can see him he got disappointed in the post match analysis that Varun aaron was not picked for any match Ganguly's field placement were always poor, his batting against short pitch ball wasn't great. But as for as I am concerned he was the best captain because he picked and backed the right talent unlike Dhoni who does not know whom to pick.

[Clarke]

OP, what yardstick are you using to suggest that Ganguly's tenure as captain is overrated ? Going by the content, it seems to be overseas record. Did you even have a look at how our previous captains have done while suggesting "There is always the talk that India managed to win overseas more under him which I don't think stats agree with." ?

A code monkey could become a connoisseur and lover of cricket if stats ( that too out of context ) were all that the great game offered for judgement. After watching King Dhoni in action, I would say underrated. The greatest captain India has had and Dhoni essentially fed off the team that he built.

+1 I really wonder if Ganguly in charge would have surrendered 4-0 twice in a year.

[vvvslaxman]

No, I think he is the best captain we have ever had. I am saying this not because he had the best cricketing brain, but he had the eye to pick the right talent who can win matches for him. He was the first captain who believed in picking the aggressive players who can give it back to the opposition. We can still see him talking about picking the pace bowlers who can pick him wickets. I have never seen him backing a player like Vinay kumar and Praveen kumar(Although he picked Bhuvaneshwar kumar but he bowls 135-140s). In the last England tour you can see him he got disappointed in the post match analysis that Varun aaron was not picked for any match Ganguly's field placement were always poor, his batting against short pitch ball wasn't great. But as for as I am concerned he was the best captain because he picked and backed the right talent unlike Dhoni who does not know whom to pick.

Not always,, Mohammad Kaif, Badani, Parthiv patel had his share of poor team selections as well. After tour match in Australia Sadagopan Ramesh was expected to be picked by all sundries. But he omitted him and picked Akash CHopra ahead of him despite he failed in 3 out of 4 tour innings. http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/132101.html