Ganguly as test captain : Overrated?

[PaceAttack]

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

Yep, He picked few mediocre players but once he realized they are not good enough, they were dropped. I can remember he once picked Venugopal Rao and he sent him 1 down against New Zealand when Shane bond was bowling fast as hell. He was bowled 1st ball he faced against Bond and he was never picked for India after that. I still remember Harbhajjan singh who himself agreed that he was about to leave cricket when he was sent off from NCA Bangalore. Ganguly picked him to play against Australia in that famous Austalia's 2001 tour and Ganguly told Harsha that Bhajji is gonna win the Kolkatta match for him. Sourav asked Srinath to come out of retirement to play for India in the 2003 world cup. He personally approached Srinath and changed his decision. Dada picked Dhoni and sent him 1 down to play against Pakistan in the 2004 series when everyone was expecting Dinesh karthik to be picked because of the 90+ runs he scored against Pakistan in the 3rd Kolkatta test match. Sourav kicked players like Mongia, Prasad, Joshi etc out of the team. I can post 100s of examples like this yaar. He was simply awesome. Gotta give credit where it's due.

[Crookbond]

^ He had some intuitions and he got it right sometimes and wrong the other times. It worked with few players like Srinath, Nikhil Chopra etc. but it did backfire as well. Tactically and in terms of performance he was no good than average. Also, your story about Venugopal Rao seems to be pure fiction. If I'm not wrong you are talking about the India-Zimbabwe-New Zealand seriesin 2005 (Greg Chappell fiasco). I don't think he played any other games under Ganguly. The game he got bowled - http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/217116.html He played the next game - http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/217481.html and guess his score. He also went on to play pretty much all games in the series if my memory serves correctly. Credit where it's due. :winky:

[PaceAttack]

^ He had some intuitions and he got it right sometimes and wrong the other times. It worked with few players like Srinath, Nikhil Chopra etc. but it did backfire as well. Tactically and in terms of performance he was no good than average. Also, your story about Venugopal Rao seems to be pure fiction. If I'm not wrong you are talking about the India-Zimbabwe-New Zealand seriesin 2005 (Greg Chappell fiasco). I don't think he played any other games under Ganguly. The game he got bowled - http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/217116.html He played the next game - http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/match/217481.html and guess his score. He also went on to play pretty much all games in the series if my memory serves correctly. Credit where it's due. :winky:

I think you got me wrong. What I am trying to say is if he believes a player is not talented enough, he sends them to play against good player and expose it to the selector that the player is no good. Similar thing happened with Thiru Kumaran(I hope i got the name right). Sourav asked him to bowl final overs against Pakistan where he got hit for 80+ and a six on the final ball to give a century to Mohd. Yousuf just to show the selectors that the player was no good to play for India. Credit where it's due....:winky:

[SLICKR392]

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

Also he had Dravid , Sachin , Laxman , Sehwag and himself on top form as a batting unit. Kumble , Bhaji , Srinath , Agarkar on top form aswell ....apart from his good captaincy ...people should stop whining about him not having a good unit.

[yoda]

Yes he is overrated. Yes we did better under him than his predecessors, but he also had a better team. How much better did we do overseas cause of his captaincy is debatable. 1 series win is not great by any standard.

[rkt.india]

2004 Nagpur test vs australia /thread.

[Clarke]

How many people here started watching cricket this century ? Only that can explain the posts/votes that suggest Dada's captaincy era as overrated. We were simply lambs abroad and have been bhikharis in the past yr. With that in perspective, what did you expect from Ganguly's leadership ? Whitewash England & South Africa on their home turf coz we were overflowing with bowling tailunt like Agarkar & Balaji ?

[fuub]

interested to hear how people rate him vs international captains in more recent times. I would put the following captains ahead of ganguly on success/captain skill considering the teams they had: border, taylor, waugh, ponting Cronje, Smith, Pollock Ranatunga, Jayawardene Akram Vaughn, Strauss Fleming based on that list and how often i hear ganguly was a great captain. When I consider he had 2 of the top 3 highest run scorers (overrated stat mind you) in his team among other talents. He was incredibly overrated. But that doesn't make him bad, its because he is the best for a 1billion cricket mad country so I guess overrated is to be expected.

[vamos_rafa]

I think you got me wrong. What I am trying to say is if he believes a player is not talented enough, he sends them to play against good player and expose it to the selector that the player is no good. Similar thing happened with Thiru Kumaran(I hope i got the name right). Sourav asked him to bowl final overs against Pakistan where he got hit for 80+ and a six on the final ball to give a century to Mohd. Yousuf just to show the selectors that the player was no good to play for India. Credit where it's due....:winky:

You know these are all subjective topics. Now consider this, During the recent Oz tour, after the first 2 tests, all of us unanimously wanted to chuck Kohli out of the test team. Everyone wondered why is not Rohit Sharma being given a chance? But "someone" decided to keep VK in the team and look what he did since then. would you not like to give MSD credit for this? Or was this purely a team management's decision while what Ganguly did was all his personal agenda?

[Number]

interested to hear how people rate him vs international captains in more recent times. I would put the following captains ahead of ganguly on success/captain skill considering the teams they had: border, taylor, waugh, ponting Cronje, Smith, Pollock Ranatunga, Jayawardene Akram Vaughn, Strauss Fleming based on that list and how often i hear ganguly was a great captain. When I consider he had 2 of the top 3 highest run scorers (overrated stat mind you) in his team among other talents. He was incredibly overrated. But that doesn't make him bad, its because he is the best for a 1billion cricket mad country so I guess overrated is to be expected.

:hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical::hysterical:

[Precambrian]

I think you got me wrong. What I am trying to say is if he believes a player is not talented enough, he sends them to play against good player and expose it to the selector that the player is no good. Similar thing happened with Thiru Kumaran(I hope i got the name right). Sourav asked him to bowl final overs against Pakistan where he got hit for 80+ and a six on the final ball to give a century to Mohd. Yousuf just to show the selectors that the player was no good to play for India. Credit where it's due....:winky:

OMG : That's the perfect insurance for a captain : If u choose a player and he does good, that's the captain's great intutition. If he doesn't and gets his **** kicked, the captain was just trying to expose that player's frailities :hysterical:

[Precambrian]

How many people here started watching cricket this century ? Only that can explain the posts/votes that suggest Dada's captaincy era as overrated. We were simply lambs abroad and have been bhikharis in the past yr. With that in perspective, what did you expect from Ganguly's leadership ? Whitewash England & South Africa on their home turf coz we were overflowing with bowling tailunt like Agarkar & Balaji ?

Our bowling has remained more or less of the same level throughout whether the 90s or 00s.... What changed our performances abroad was that our great middle order came to party, and we found a swashbuckling opener too... in other words our batting started bailing us out of many a troubled situations

[The Outsider]

Captaincy, itself is overrated. If Dhoni had quit as captain before the England and Australian tours he would have been hailed as the greatest Indian captain ever by the ignoramus. The best captain India has had have been Dravid (on field) and Pataudi (off field). Ganguly would make the top 3, but was certainly not the best Indian captain. Kapil, as an on field leader by example and playing every game to win, would also be among the top.

[PaceAttack]

You know these are all subjective topics. Now consider this, During the recent Oz tour, after the first 2 tests, all of us unanimously wanted to chuck Kohli out of the test team. Everyone wondered why is not Rohit Sharma being given a chance? But "someone" decided to keep VK in the team and look what he did since then. would you not like to give MSD credit for this? Or was this purely a team management's decision while what Ganguly did was all his personal agenda?

No, yaar, He kept Virat Kohli in the team but can he explain why he picked Vinay Kumar to play in the world's fastest Perth test pitch.? If sourav was the captain, he would have never picked Vinay Kumar to play for Indian team let alone playing in the Perth test match. We can't compare Venugopal Rao and Thiru Kumaran with Virat Kohli. Can we?

[rkt.india]

I think you got me wrong. What I am trying to say is if he believes a player is not talented enough, he sends them to play against good player and expose it to the selector that the player is no good. Similar thing happened with Thiru Kumaran(I hope i got the name right). Sourav asked him to bowl final overs against Pakistan where he got hit for 80+ and a six on the final ball to give a century to Mohd. Yousuf just to show the selectors that the player was no good to play for India. Credit where it's due....:winky:

Dhoni handeled last over to Jogi and showed how good a bowler he is, but he was dropped since then. How it is Dhoni's fault if selectors dont a select a bowler like Jogi who won us the T20 WC final.:hatsoff:

[PaceAttack]

OMG : That's the perfect insurance for a captain : If u choose a player and he does good' date=' that's the captain's great intutition. If he doesn't and gets his **** kicked, the captain was just trying to expose that player's frailities :hysterical:[/quote'] Nope. You can see Dhoni backing players like Jadeja and Vinay kumar even after repeated failures. Dada never did that. He will be kicked out for good once he shows the selector what a poor selection the selectors have made. Thiru kumaran never played for India after he got smashed for 80+ against Pak. But you will see our beloved Dhoni giving chances to medicore player even after their repeated failures.

[rkt.india]

No' date=' yaar, He kept Virat Kohli in the team but can he explain why he picked Vinay Kumar to play in the world's fastest Perth test pitch.? If sourav was the captain, he would have never picked Vinay Kumar to play for Indian team let alone playing in the Perth test match. We can't compare Venugopal Rao and Thiru Kumaran with Virat Kohli. Can we?[/quote'] But Ganguly picked Iqbal Siiddiqui and Tinu Yohanun, bigger trundlers than Vinay.

[rkt.india]

Captaincy, itself is overrated. If Dhoni had quit as captain before the England and Australian tours he would have been hailed as the greatest Indian captain ever by the ignoramus. The best captain India has had have been Dravid (on field) and Pataudi (off field). Ganguly would make the top 3, but was certainly not the best Indian captain. Kapil, as an on field leader by example and playing every game to win, would also be among the top.

This.

[PaceAttack]

Dhoni handeled last over to Jogi and showed how good a bowler he is' date=' but he was dropped since then. How it is Dhoni's fault if selectors dont a select a bowler like Jogi who won us the T20 WC final.:hatsoff:[/quote'] Dhoni gave Jogi only because Bhajji was not sure of bowling the last over. We must agree that Jogi's over and the misbah's wicket was pure luck. Do you think Jogi was a good enough player to play for India?

[PaceAttack]

But Ganguly picked Iqbal Siiddiqui and Tinu Yohanun' date=' bigger trundlers than Vinay.[/quote'] But he did not give repeated chances to them like our Dhoni giving chances to VK and PK.