Saturday, September 10, 2005

End of An Era?

Nice article by Harsha Bhogle on where Indian cricket stands right now. I was a supporter of keeping Ganguly as captain till as recently as the Pakistan series. The past two series show him as having serious issues in the head. If after so long in the game, he cannot counter the short ball on his body, his hard work(?) on his technique leaves a lot to be desired. The (lack of) improvement in his running between the wickets and fielding mean that there is an 'attitude problem' somewhere that needs fixing.

Further, the series in SL showed that Dravid has the chops to be captain. He showed a lot of aggression as captain, and did a great job of marshalling his resources. His batting didn't suffer all that much, and but for that ill-timed rush of blood by him in the final, we might well have held the trophy in our hands there.

It's time to move on. Ganguly's been a great captain, and he showed us some of our best times ( A world cup final, that magical pair of series against Australia and the win in Pakistan). But as he has suffered in form, the team has suffered due to his diffidence at the top of the order, and as captain.

Let him earn his way back into the team the hard way - by performing. Appoint Dravid as captain and get on with it. Our greatest player ever deserves a World Cup. It's the best gift this team can give the man who carried it for the better part of a decade.


3 comments:

infinity said...

i have always felt that ganguly was an inept but lucky captain for india...finally he proves me right...

CAR said...

what what world cup final did we show up for?

Ajay said...

Infinity - Ganguly backed some of the players who became very important players for India - Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh for instance. He brought belief and attitude to a team that lacked it.Strictly my opinion though.

Dushyant - um, the 2003 Cricket World Cup in SA?.We won everything except a league match and the final - both against Australia.