Sourav Ganguly: Cricket, Captaincy and Controversy

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The Enigma of Sourav Ganguly

‘Sourav, an ODI great but just a level short in Tests’

– Sunil Gavaskar

Cricket underwent a transformation in the mid-1970s when it became a game of the white ball, floodlights and coloured attire, thanks to Aussie media baron Kerry Packer and his World Series cricket. Although Test cricket had been number one in the popularity charts till then, one-day international (ODI) cricket was catching up. Unlike Test cricket, where a five-day game was often declared closed without any conclusion, each ODI match gave results at close of a day’s play. Cricketers started to be differentiated on the basis of their game: Test or one-dayer.

The Prudential World Cup in the 1970s and India’s win in 1983 created a wave of ODI cricket fans. Add to that the 1987 Reliance Cup, which was hosted in the subcontinent, and you had people going crazy about the new format.

Sourav Ganguly (Dada to his fans) began his international career in 1992, playing an ODI. He was shunted out for four years immediately after the match but he made a magnificent comeback with a brilliant century in his debut Test at Lord’s in 1996.

Ganguly remains an enigma in both forms of the game. The numbers, when he retired in 2008, indicated that as an ODI player he is easily one of the best ever. Add to this his dynamic captaincy, which paved the way for unprecedented Test success for India. However, the jury is divided about his Test career, and the general consensus is that he was just about above average in Tests – no doubt his achievements in Tests pale in comparison to his ODI record and his greatness as captain.

Sourav Ganguly has as many fans as critics. Many rooted for his inspirational leadership and ‘God on the off side’ status, while many others criticized him for his lack of athleticism and the inelegant manner in which he would jump at short deliveries. Though he started as a classy Test player with two back-to-back centuries in his debut Test series in England, with time, Ganguly started experimenting with risky shots and emerged as a top-notch

ODI player.

His performance in the debut series and several man-of-the-match awards acquired in series played against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Australia secured him a place in the team. As he began to pile on the runs, his confidence went up – leading to powerful stroke play. Ganguly was soon promoted to the top order in the ODIs and formed the most destructive opening pair in limited-over cricket with Sachin Tendulkar, even surpassing the famous Caribbean duo Gordon Greenidge–Desmond Haynes.

But there is always a flipside to everything. Ganguly wasn’t comfortable playing short balls in Test cricket and often got out because of mistimed hooks and pulls. Once bowlers realized this weakness, they had him out in no time. He performed well in ODIs as there was a restriction on short balls in this format.

Sourav Ganguly’s knock of 131 made him the third player to achieve the rare feat of a century on debut at Lord’s after Harry Graham and John Hampshire (later, Andrew Strauss and Matt Prior emulated the feat). It remains the highest by a debutante at Lord’s. His 136 in the next Test at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, was only the third instance, after Lawrence Rowe and Alvin Kallicharan, of a player scoring a century in his first two innings. His 255-runs partnership with Sachin Tendulkar in the course of this innings is the highest by Indians against any country for any wicket outside India at the time. The Test ended in a draw; England won the series 1–0; Ganguly scored 48 in the second innings. It was a fairy-tale Test debut that took him to the top of the tour chart, including first-class games, with 762 runs (among them three centuries) at an average of 95.25, pushing master-blaster Sachin Tendulkar to second spot.

But Ganguly’s happiness was short-lived because he couldn’t bat well in the next few Tests, especially against South Africa in India and outside. After a relative lull, he bounced back in the later part of 1997 with three centuries in four Tests, all against Sri Lanka. Two of these involved 250-plus partnerships with Tendulkar.

Sourav Ganguly made his maiden ODI ton, scoring 113 against Sri Lanka in 1997. The same year, he won four consecutive man-of-the-match awards during the Sahara Cup at Toronto against Pakistan; this included one for a brilliant five-wicket haul, conceding just 16 runs in 10 overs, his best ODI bowling figure. In January the very next year, he scored 124 in the Independence Cup final in Dhaka while chasing Pakistan’s daunting score of 314.

Ganguly’s batting in limited-overs cricket became deadlier, especially after he was promoted to opening batsman. Left-hander Ganguly and right-hander Tendulkar wove magic on the field. Field restrictions in the first 15 overs in ODIs allowed good strikers like Ganguly to move the bat freely; he would dance down the track and hit over extra cover and mid-off. He was brutal against left-arm spinners because of his ability to pick the length early and hit the ball in the air over mid-on or mid-wicket.

The Ganguly–Tendulkar opening partnership was extremely successful in ODI formats, and the pair scored the highest number of century partnerships, 16, for the first wicket. Together, they scored 6609 runs at an average of 49.32 and shared the highest first-wicket partnership record for India in an ODI (258) against Kenya in 2001.

Ganguly smashed a career-best 183 runs off 158 balls, hitting 17 fours and 7 sixes during the 1999 World Cup against Sri Lanka at Taunton, England. His score was the second highest in World Cup history and remains the highest by an Indian in the tournament. Ganguly’s partnership of 318 with Dravid in this match is the highest overall score in a World Cup and the second highest in ODI history.

Between 1999 and 2000, his impressive ODI batting form, with five centuries, catapulted him to the top of the PwC One-day Ratings for batsmen.

In 2000, following the match-fixing scandal and after Sachin Tendulkar relinquished his captaincy, Sourav Ganguly was made captain of the Indian team. He guided the team to a series win over SA in a five-match ODI series and led India to the finals of the 2000 ICC Knockout Trophy. He also hit two centuries in this series, including one in the final against New Zealand, though India lost the match. Between 2000 and 2005, even as a legendary Test captain was in the making, Ganguly’s individual performance took a beating, especially after the World Cup in 2003, in particular the tour of Australia in 2003 and the Pakistan Series in 2004. His insipid batting and the controversial spat between Greg Chappell and himself guaranteed his ouster from the Indian side. But Ganguly clocked a sensational comeback in the away series against South Africa in 2006–07.

Sourav Ganguly maintained an average of over 40 throughout his career. In the first three years of his career, during which he played 30 Tests, he averaged more than 50. In the next twenty games, the number went down, taking the overall average to 41. The average hovered around 41 for the rest of his career, finally ending at 42.17.

While his form in Test cricket dipped after his debut series, his performances in the ODIs peaked. He scored 11 centuries and 18 fifties in seventy-six games between October 1999 and June 2002, averaging more than 49 at a strike rate of nearly 80. Out of a career total of twenty-two centuries, fifteen came between 1998 and 2000. The year 2000 was the most productive for Ganguly because that was when he hit seven ODI centuries, almost one-third the total number of centuries of his career. Had he not been dismissed six times in the nervous nineties, his century count would have been even more impressive.

Ganguly’s evolution as a cricketer over a twelve-year period went through the following distinct phases: In 1996–97, he was primarily seen as a Test player and he played to secure his place in the team. Between 1998 and 2000, he evolved as a one-day player. In 2000, he stepped into the captain’s shoes and led the team and dealt with management issues while ‘batsman’ Sourav Ganguly took a back seat. He lost his form and was dropped from the side after a spat with coach Greg Chappell in 2005–06. He made a glorious comeback in 2007–08, rising like a phoenix, both in Tests and ODIs.

If there was one moment that defined the fighter in Sourav Ganguly and added to his image as a captain who was not going to get cowed down, it was in the first Test in Brisbane against Australia in 2003–04 in what would go down as a historic series. He began with a knock of rare bravado. India was down at 60 for 3 in the first innings of the first Test. The Aussies had smelled blood but Ganguly’s knock of 144 turned the game around, providing the much-needed confidence in the batting line-up and setting the tone for the series.

There were other equally majestic performances in Tests. For example, his match-saving fight for India and career-resurrecting knock of an unbeaten 51 against South Africa at Johannesburg in 2006 is sure to find a place in Indian cricket history. After scoring a maiden double ton (239) against Pakistan in 2007, his quick-fire 91 in the second innings in Bangalore was awe-inspiring. Ganguly made batting on a difficult surface look like a walk in the park. When Ganguly was the captain, Rahul Dravid was the key batsman behind India’s success overseas. When Dravid became the captain, Ganguly made a stunning comeback as a batsman. There was something outstanding about his 57 at the Oval in 2007 when he came in to bat with India reeling at 11 for 3. The innings was instrumental behind the series victory that English summer.

Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid debuted together in Tests and continued to play together till the former’s last Test. Dravid being one of the top three run-getters in Test cricket, a comparative study between Dravid and Ganguly till the latter’s hundredth Test provides an interesting account of how Ganguly’s Test batting reached a plateau. For the first thirty Tests, the gap between the average runs of both was less than five. Between the thirtieth and fortieth Tests, Ganguly evolved as a world-class one-day batsman and between the fortieth and fiftieth Tests, though his dream run as one-day player continued, the burden of India’s captaincy impacted his batting. He scored more than 150 only twice unlike Dravid, who hit more than 150 nine times in his career.

When it came to ODIs, however, Sourav Ganguly was miles ahead of most world-class batsmen. He will be remembered as a great ODI player in the same league as Viv Richards, Sachin Tendulkar, Brian Lara, Ricky Ponting, Inzamam-ul-Haq and Sanath Jayasuriya. With 72 half centuries and a ranking of six in the number of fifties, he was the third batsman to enter the prestigious 11,000-runs club after Tendulkar and Jayasuriya. If Tendulkar scored more than 1000 runs seven times in a calendar year, Ganguly wasn’t far behind. He scored 1000 or more runs six times in a calendar year. In Indian cricket, the number of runs (11,363) and number of centuries (22) in one-day cricket

that Ganguly has scored have only been surpassed by Tendulkar till date.

Ganguly acquired these runs much faster and with a much better average than Jayasuriya and Inzamam. Inzy took fifty innings more to score 400 more runs than Ganguly. Jayasuriya played the maximum number of matches after Tendulkar, though his average is the lowest (32.36) among these cricketers. In the elite 10,000 ODI runs club – Ganguly’s average of 41.02 is comparable to that of Tendulkar (44.74), Ponting (42.03) and Lara (40.48).

Till 2005, Sourav Ganguly was the second-best name in ODI history after Sachin Tendulkar, both in terms of the runs scored and number of centuries. Ganguly’s charismatic ODI career came to an abrupt halt because of several reasons, most importantly, the Greg Chappell–Ganguly quarrel, controversies surrounding fitness and form, the T20 culture and BCCI’s internal politics. Ganguly became a pawn in the hands of a section of cricket officials who manipulated the game for their own good. There was a time when his inability to score runs also made it difficult for him to hold his place in the team. The unexpected win at the inaugural T20 World Cup by the younger members of the Indian team, under the captaincy of M.S. Dhoni, accelerated his departure. The demand for young and agile players increased.

As an opening pair, Ganguly and Tendulkar scored over 6600 ODI runs together at an average of close to 50 in 136 innings, leaving the Gilchrist–Hayden and Greenidge–Haynes pair far behind. The two remain the most prolific run-scoring partners in ODI history.

Few batsmen in the world exhibited the grace that Sourav Ganguly had when he hit sixes. There was something sublime about Ganguly dancing down the track and demolishing the bowling attack, be it Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar, Chaminda Vaas, Muttiah Muralitharan, Glenn McGrath, Shane Warne or Shaun Pollock. His towering sixes, wreaking havoc on the opposition, were a sight for sore eyes.

Ganguly is also the only player to have won four consecutive man-of-the-match awards in ODIs. He is the sixth on the all-time list with 31 man-of-the-match awards.

In ODIs, Ganguly was the fastest to reach the 7000-, 8000- and 9000-runs mark. In fact, he achieved these milestones very early on in his career. His brilliance in the World Cup and Champions Trophy, the two premier tournaments in ODIs, vindicates his supremacy.

Perhaps one SG (Sunil Gavaskar) summed up well the career of another SG (Sourav Ganguly) when the latter announced his retirement: ‘Ganguly, an ODI great but just a level short in Tests.’ The former India captain said, ‘Sourav Ganguly will go down as a great ODI player but the same cannot be said of the stylish left-hander in Test cricket as he lacked consistency. I think at the one-day level, he is a great player. With the number of runs he made, the number of man-of-the-match awards he won, he is right up there. But at the Test level, he was just a level short because he was not as consistent.’

In this evaluation valid?

Sourav Ganguly, with 7212 Test runs to his credit, is the sixth-highest Indian run scorer after Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Sunil Gavaskar, Virender Sehwag and V.V.S. Laxman. There is no doubt about his abilities, but cricket pundits say that when it came to actually delivering, he was unable to do so. They attribute his failure to make it as a great Test batsman to several factors:

Ganguly began his career at number three in the batting order, but was able to play only 16 matches in that position. He batted at number 4 in 18 innings but for a major part of his career he batted at number 5 (84 times) and 6 (39 times). When he became captain, he had to bat at the fifth or sixth positions as the third or fourth places were already taken by Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar.

After his comeback at the fag end of his career, Ganguly, the man of the series against Pakistan in 2007, attributed his stupendous success in the series to batting at number four. Ganguly walked in at number 4 in three out of six innings, scoring 46, 239 and 91 runs respectively. He realized he could have more hundreds in a Test career had he batted at a higher position. After his most successful three-match series against Pakistan, he said: ‘I got to bat at number 4 in this series and it helped me. I have batted lower down the order several times and Rahul used to bat at number 3 followed by Sachin at 4. As a result, I had to bat at fifth or, sometimes, sixth position and I missed quite a few hundreds because we did not have wicketkeepers like M.S. Dhoni and Dinesh Karthik who also doubled up as batsmen. These guys support people batting at fifth or sixth position. But Laxman and I suffered in terms of getting hundreds.’ (Source: CNN-IBN interview)

Ganguly scored a ton when he was batting at number 5 in the second Test of his final Indo-Pak series on home soil with fans in Kolkata cheering him on in his favourite stadium, Eden Gardens. In the second innings, he was sent in at number 4 to accelerate the  scoring. Tendulkar’s injury forced Ganguly to play at number 4 in the final Test at Bangalore too, where he dazzled with his career-best score of 239 runs. Figures indicate that he played better at positions 3 and 4 – the ones favoured by Dravid and Tendulkar than his usual number 5.

Batting lower down the order with only the tail for company denied Ganguly a few centuries (add to it getting out twice on 99 and remaining unbeaten on 98 once). In his effort to score more runs, knowing too well the inability of tail-enders to stick around, he played risky shots, sometimes gifting his wicket away. But he was able to score more runs than players like Dilip Vengsarkar (6868 runs), Mohammad Azharuddin (6215 runs) and Gundappa Viswanath (6080 runs), who batted higher up in the batting order, and who are all considered great Test players. Ganguly’s Test average never went below 40. He is India’s sixth-highest Test run-scorer and century-hitter.

It is perhaps true that Ganguly’s brilliant record as India’s most successful captain came at the cost of his performance, especially in the Test format.

Though Team India recorded a few spectacular performances when Sourav Ganguly was captain, he was too busy figuring out strategies, orienting and motivating a bunch of promising youngsters and preparing a training plan with coach John Wright to focus on his own batting. His average as captain in 49 Tests is less than 38. However, in 64 Tests, where he played just as a batsman like Dravid and Tendulkar, his average was a healthy 45.15. When he was not captain, eleven of his centuries came in 113 innings, taking an average of 10.27 innings per century. During his tenure as captain, batsman Ganguly scored five centuries in 75 innings, taking an average of 15 innings per ton. Quite aware of this, Ganguly sounded calm just before his farewell series against the Aussies in 2008: ‘I have played 109 Tests and over 300 ODIs. I am the fourth-highest run-getter in the country, the total runs in Tests and ODIs being 18,251, that is the ninth in the world. I took the team to the World Cup final. Defeated Australia on Australian soil. Won the series in Pakistan, a win of altogether 22 Tests. But you don’t get everything you want.’

When Ganguly was dropped after his infamous argument with coach Greg Chappell, he was just 12 Tests short of playing his hundredth Test. While he was in exile, he realized the need to perform to the best of his ability in Test cricket. After all, it is through one’s performance in Test cricket that critics evaluate cricketers. During his comeback in 2006, he crossed 1000 Test runs in a calendar year for the first time in his career.

During the three-Test series on home soil against Pakistan in 2007–08, he scored his best aggregate in a Test series, while picking up 5 wickets under 20.

In his ninety-ninth Test, Ganguly smashed 239 against Pakistan in Bangalore – his elusive, maiden double ton finally coming when the team was in trouble and desperately needed his bat to do the talking. He went out to bat when India was 40/2. Soon after it was 61/4. It was Ganguly who brought some stability to the innings, partnering first with Yuvraj Singh and then with Irfan Pathan. This 239 was special because it brought to the fore his ability to bat for five sessions in a Test, which he couldn’t do earlier. The cheering by the Bangalore crowd must have been music to his ears, because the crowd there had always been hostile to him. The series also saw him amass the second-most number of runs in a three-Test series by any Indian batsman.

But politics inside the BCCI and provincialism, which has always been the bane of Indian cricket, finally cut short Sourav Ganguly’s dream Test run after the Sri Lanka series. Although all four big guns – Tendulkar, Laxman, Dravid and Ganguly did not score well, only Ganguly was axed. He called it a day after the Australia series.

When we look back, we see a sudden spark in his batting in the last few Tests innings at Eden, Bangalore and Mohali with three back-to-back centuries. In his newly adjusted stance (famous Pak cricketer Zaheer Abbas pointed out Ganguly’s defective stance and asked him to rectify it), Ganguly stood more upright. He was more effective than before, particularly on the leg side. After his return, Ganguly surpassed the Test run aggregates of Azharuddin (6215) and Vengsarkar (6868). Had he not been dropped for sixteen months, he could have easily amassed some more Test runs and centuries.

Geoff Boycott said in an interview once, ‘I still feel a little more Test cricket was left in Sourav. Sourav was not only one of the best captains India ever produced, but he was a great batsman too. Unfortunately … captaincy and controversy did not allow … his batsmanship to flourish like it should have.’

If runs in Test cricket are a measure of a player’s capability, Sourav Ganguly should get a place among the best. He made his debut with a majestic century at Lord’s and ended with 85 runs in the first innings of the final Test at Nagpur against the Aussies, thereby missing a century in his last Test, which would have complemented his first one.

After scoring his maiden double ton (239) against Pakistan in Bangalore, he thundered through the Pak bowling in the second innings, scoring 91. Very few players – like Gavaskar, Lara