Ganguly as test captain : Overrated?

[Crookbond]

Ganguly backed right players and in that part he played politics. You don't have to be a saint to do everything right. Selection process was effed up when he took over and it was him who openly criticised selectors at times for selecting wrong players , that was politically wrong but much needed for Indian Cricket.

Politics worked both ways. His obsession for Yuvraj in Test matches wasn't good. There are other similar examples too. So, if you cite the good - you also cite the bad. IMO, these things even out. But, yes he was one who "backed" the players unlike earlier captains.

[Number]

Politics worked both ways. His obsession for Yuvraj in Test matches wasn't good. There are other similar examples too. So' date= if you cite the good - you also cite the bad. IMO, these things even out. But, yes he was one who "backed" the players unlike earlier captains.

and even a "very honest student of the Game" Rahul Dravid couldn't resist the talent Yuvi had. He kept getting more and more chances even under RD. How do you explain that ?

[Crookbond]

I am referring to two incidents here - Dropping Akash Chopra for Yuvraj Singh to open the batting against Australia ( :WTF: ) and playing Yuvraj Singh ahead of Mohammad Kaif in Zimbabwe when Kaif was the right choice to play. Also, Yuvraj wasn't ready for Test cricket under Ganguly pre-2005. Yuvraj flourished under the Chappell stint and was rightly handed a chance later. He scored 2 hundreds under Dravid contrast to a HS of 47 under Ganguly. Also, Dravid didn't hesitate to discard him after 2006 when he didn't perform well unlike Ganguly who kept citing "better record" ( :dontknow: ) for Yuvraj ahead of Kaif and Chopra. The point is Ganguly was a good captain and that's that. Dravid was a touch above average PERIOD. However, people elevate Ganguly beyond "good" and put down Dravid below "touch above average" which makes things unfair.

[saneindian]

If 'selecting' and 'backing' the 'right players' is the criteria to judge a captain, I must say Azhar has to be the greatest captain the world has ever seen. Kumble, Srinath, Dada, Dravid, VVS, Bhajji and not forget Agarkar, some of our biggest ever cricketers all started their careers under him. And if Kohlis, Rohit, Rahane go onto become future batting ngreats, it will all be down to MSD for having 'selected' and then 'backed' them.

[The Outsider]

^ I'll see your Azhar and raise you a Cheeka for 'selecting' and 'backing' India's greatest ever batsman.

[Number]

I am referring to two incidents here - Dropping Akash Chopra for Yuvraj Singh to open the batting against Australia ( :WTF: ) and playing Yuvraj Singh ahead of Mohammad Kaif in Zimbabwe when Kaif was the right choice to play. Also, Yuvraj wasn't ready for Test cricket under Ganguly pre-2005. Yuvraj flourished under the Chappell stint and was rightly handed a chance later. He scored 2 hundreds under Dravid contrast to a HS of 47 under Ganguly. Also, Dravid didn't hesitate to discard him after 2006 when he didn't perform well unlike Ganguly who kept citing "better record" ( :dontknow: ) for Yuvraj ahead of Kaif and Chopra.

In Pakistan 2004 2nd test Yuvraj scored a century when our batting collapsed. So Ganguly dropped Akash chopra in 3rd test who was neither scoring big nor he looked good against good bowling. Then gave him a run of 3 tests as an opener that included Aus series. Nothing wrong with that. As for Kaif being better choice ,both Ganguly and RD favured Yuvraj above Kaif always. I remember Kaif was our highest scorer against England 2nd test in home series. For 3rd test Yuvi was fit and RD dropped Kaif. Don't find much wrong with that either , both of them went with the intuition , sometimes that works sometimes doesn't.

The point is Ganguly was a good captain and that's that. Dravid was a touch above average PERIOD. However, people elevate Ganguly beyond "good" and put down Dravid below "touch above average" which makes things unfair.

Dravid was a good captain. Ganguly was great. :two_thumbs_up:

If 'selecting' and 'backing' the 'right players' is the criteria to judge a captain, I must say Azhar has to be the greatest captain the world has ever seen. Kumble, Srinath, Dada, Dravid, VVS, Bhajji and not forget Agarkar, some of our biggest ever cricketers all started their careers under him. And if Kohlis, Rohit, Rahane go onto become future batting ngreats, it will all be down to MSD for having 'selected' and then 'backed' them.

Well, it's not the sole criteria.

[adi B]

ganguly was a great captain no doubt... fact is nd what worries me is why does dhoni pick trundlers in odi`s nd test... why do we not play fast bowlers in most of the game...i have bcome sick of watching these trundlers bowl for more than 2-3 years... i usually skip the channel when india bowls, considering the fact that i am a great fan of fast bowling... i really hope dhoni plays aaron,yadav regularly in all format:pray:

[PaceAttack]

If 'selecting' and 'backing' the 'right players' is the criteria to judge a captain, I must say Azhar has to be the greatest captain the world has ever seen. Kumble, Srinath, Dada, Dravid, VVS, Bhajji and not forget Agarkar, some of our biggest ever cricketers all started their careers under him. And if Kohlis, Rohit, Rahane go onto become future batting ngreats, it will all be down to MSD for having 'selected' and then 'backed' them.

No sir, You forgot Sunil Joshi, Nayan mongia, Venkatapathy Raju, and countless dummies played and backed by Azhar. Let's not compare that cheat with the captains like Dravid or Ganguly.

[PaceAttack]

ganguly was a great captain no doubt... fact is nd what worries me is why does dhoni pick trundlers in odi`s nd test... why do we not play fast bowlers in most of the game...i have bcome sick of watching these trundlers bowl for more than 2-3 years... i usually skip the channel when india bowls, considering the fact that i am a great fan of fast bowling... i really hope dhoni plays aaron,yadav regularly in all format:pray:

Yep, Thats the worrying part. If Dhoni plays the best pacers we have, Many cricket fans would rate him higher. But winning the 2007 t 20 wc changed his thought I think.

[pensionplan]

When this thread was started' date=' I voted no. [b']But it seems that he is highly overrated by some or probably many people.

That is correct because he was not a great captain, so if people think of him as such then he is overrated. If however the assumption is that Ganguly is average then he is not overrated.

[pensionplan]

No sir' date=' You forgot Sunil Joshi, Nayan mongia, Venkatapathy Raju, and countless dummies played and backed by Azhar. Let's not compare that cheat with the captains like Dravid or Ganguly.[/quote']Keeping aside the cheat allegations all the three players listed(Joshi, Mongia, Raju) in there are decent who played under Azza. There are far worse players that got a chance under Ganguly if you care to look properly(example Deep Sh!t Gupta, Bangar opening etc).

[PaceAttack]

Keeping aside the cheat allegations all the three players listed(Joshi' date=' Mongia, Raju) in there are decent who played under Azza. There are far worse players that got a chance under Ganguly if you care to look properly(example Deep Sh!t Gupta, Bangar opening etc).[/quote'] Nayan mongia: Competition Tests ODIs Matches 44 140 Runs scored 1442 1272 Batting average 24.03 20.19 You call this record decent? and it took 100s of ODI matches and 44 test matches to realize his potential? When Dada became the captain of India, he wanted Mongia out of the team. Atleast Dada tried different option. Remember it was Dada who wanted Dhoni in the ODI team when everyone was expecting Dinesh Karthik to play for India in the ODI series against Pakistan 2004 when he scored 90+ score in the Kolkatta test match which helped India to draw the test match against Pakistan.

[Crookbond]

I'm not sure why people sometimes feel that posting an objective view hurts their argument and try chicanery. Lets post the good & bad points - does it hurt? It's all good for Ganguly and bad for other captains. Surely, it can't be that way? One needs to just understand how the WK job was before Adam Gilchrist burst on the scene i.e. if you watched games pre 2000. Very few WKs in the world had a good batting record. Here's Ian Healy's batting record 119 Tests @ 27.39 168 ODIs @ 21 So, by the same Najafgarh logic Ian Healy was a "bad choice" as a WK. However, only the guys who watched the game would be aware of Healy's worth and that's how WK's were before Gilchrist. Common mate, stop portraying Ganguly as a fighter while the others as sh!it. If you're in for a rational debate, lets keep the platitudes aside & credit where it's due. I've said earlier - Ganguly was a good captain but if you want to call him the running best ever, things will be heavily scrutinized to the detail. And btw, since selective quoting of the article is a trend, here's a snip from the article -

The message from the selectors is loud and clear: Nayan Mongia may be the best wicketkeeper in the country but there is no place for him in the Indian team.

[Old guy]

I agree that Dhoni has failed in the last 2 tours. But, I would not buy this arguement. In england, we were strgulling to pick 11 players in the team leave out having a winning combination. We had jokers like Sreesanth and Ishant who can't pick a freaking wicket in those conditions. And in batting only Dravid scored and Sachin was playing recklessly. But, MS did fail as a captain in Oz.We had them under the mat on so many occasaions but again team is failing collectively. I don;t know whether everything should be attributed to 1 person or not. But, he has also managaed the same team. Our bowling attack in SL was piss poor yet we did not lose that series. Again in SA,there were some decisions by him which were pretty good specially in the durban test. He also batted with a lot of assurance in that series.It's his defensive mindset which cost us that series though. But, as a tactician, I feel Dravid was the best.

completely agree:two_thumbs_up:

[King]

Ganguly brought never say die attitude I guess and didn't give a toss for a lot of critics that were having odd effect on the team. Never one to shy away from expressing himself he did a lot of good to Indian cricket which was at crossroads with match fixing around. The best he did was force out the match fixers in the team :two_thumbs_up:

[PaceAttack]

I'm not sure why people sometimes feel that posting an objective view hurts their argument and try chicanery. Lets post the good & bad points - does it hurt? It's all good for Ganguly and bad for other captains. Surely, it can't be that way? One needs to just understand how the WK job was before Adam Gilchrist burst on the scene i.e. if you watched games pre 2000. Very few WKs in the world had a good batting record. Here's Ian Healy's batting record 119 Tests @ 27.39 168 ODIs @ 21 So, by the same Najafgarh logic Ian Healy was a "bad choice" as a WK. However, only the guys who watched the game would be aware of Healy's worth and that's how WK's were before Gilchrist. Common mate, stop portraying Ganguly as a fighter while the others as sh!it. If you're in for a rational debate, lets keep the platitudes aside & credit where it's due. I've said earlier - Ganguly was a good captain but if you want to call him the running best ever, things will be heavily scrutinized to the detail. And btw, since selective quoting of the article is a trend, here's a snip from the article -

Ian Healey didn't play in these patta wickets. Mongia did, and everyone know how bad Mongia was...If you really wanna compare Ian healey with Mongia, I dont want to debate this anymore. I never said others were ****. If you have watched cricket Post Ganguly's era, you would know why I like Ganguly very much. Azhar, Jadeja, Tendulkar captained Indian team, and a tour after tour to abroad, I switch on the TV and watch Indian team play in England or Australia and felt embarassed the way we played there. Then, I watched Dada captaining Indian team and saw a new approach, Young boys, aggressive attitude and started loving indian cricket never before. Then came the 2003 world cup, I can still remember lot of moments from that world cup, the way our boys played, the way they defeated the Pakis was simply amazing and i still remember it like yesterday. Then came Dravid, the worst of the lot, although he showed some cricketing brain, it was Greg chappell who took the centrestage whenever Indian won anything. Who would forget the 2007 world cup? the worst performance I have ever seen lead by Dravid. Dhoni was brillian for first couple of years and then he started behaving the same way Indian captains played in the 90s. Losing matches after matches, tour after tours. The love he showed for trudlers, how can I rate him one of the best? From what I have seen in my limited cricketing knowledge, I rate Ganguly as the best just because he showed the foreigners that Indians cannot be taken for granted. No matter what you say, me and tons n tons of fans would believe Dada was the best we have ever had.

[PaceAttack]

The message from the selectors is loud and clear: Nayan Mongia may be the best wicketkeeper in the country but there is no place for him in the Indian team.

Yep, Selectors said that, not Ganguly.

[Crookbond]

Enjoy fapping to Ganguly. As I have told earlier, Ganguly was good and Dravid is touch above average. I wouldn't even have their names when I'm discussing the greatest captains of all time.

[Old guy]

Enjoy fapping to Ganguly. As I have told earlier' date=' Ganguly was good and Dravid is touch above average. I wouldn't even have their names when I'm discussing the greatest captains of all time.[/quote'] wbu gr8st indian captains ?

[saneindian]

In this entire discussion, wonder why John Wright's name hasn't cropped up even once for the way team got transformed. if MSD's success till the WC is attributd to Kirsten, wonder why Wright shouldn't be given equal credit for changing a lot of things in Indian cricket.