Greatest Indian Skipper of all time

gvhvhg · Post by **gvhvhg** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:36 pm

Even though we here at sports-india pride ourselves on one general cricket thread, i feel obligated to start this poll due to a recent discussion in the cricket thread....

is saurav ganguly the greatest indian captain of all time???

vkd_1717 · Post by **vkd_1717** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:39 pm

i voted ganguly, he is the greatest captain we have seen so far in indian cricket but he can do a lot more for the team so we need a new approach maybe someone like Kumble

i dont think you get my point i agree ganguly is the best so far but the team has potential to do better ... i think kumble would do a better job by taking india to no.1 instead of being satisfied with no.2.... he would definately do better in ODIs but he would do as well as Gnaguly in tests

vkd_1717 · Post by **vkd_1717** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 5:40 pm

gvhvhg, you started this poll twice

gvhvhg · Post by **gvhvhg** » Sat Dec 11, 2004 7:22 pm

yeah i dont know what happened---i thought i had put a few more options on too

Pataudi..... and one more i forget who

vkd_1717 · Post by **vkd_1717** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:23 am

this poll is useless, i doubt anyone wont vote ganguly and if the dont theyll vote dev for the 83 world cup

a poll of who should be the captain as of now would be the one you are looking for ... its ganguly v kumble but you can add dravid and tendulkar

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 3:40 am

I don't know why you are so keen on Kumble being captain. TO be a capatain aggression is not just the factor. You need to be motivating too. If just aggression is needed, then Sehwag would make the best captain. But it is not so. And nasser hussain was great captain, but neither he is the best English batsmen nor he lead the team with his performances. There are many captains who are not best. You need different skills to lead the team and Ganguly have them in plenty. And more over even if kumble can be a great captain, it is not ideal to make him captain now when he is 34. It would be a bad idea. If at all we have to change captain we have to make one who is going to captain India for next 10 years. And i would say Kaif is the best for that post. He has great captaining skills, and my personal opinion is that he might become a better captain than Ganguly. I was very impressed with his captaincy skills when he captained India to under-19 victory.

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 1:08 pm

Ganguly has clearly been the most successful Indian captain of all time. And he achieved this not by accident, but by his excellent handling of his men (or "boys", as he calls them!). It is worth remembering that he took over from Sachin Tendulkar, whose period of stewardship saw one of the worst periods in Indian test history -- certainly the worst period since the 1970s. We had just suffered a humiliating 0-3 thrashing in Australia, and then lost a home series 0-2 to South Africa. Before that, we lost in the West Indies despite being in an eminently winning position in Bridgetown (folding for 89 all out when faced with a meagre target of 120).

It is difficult, nay impossible, to come up with a test captaincy record by an Indian skipper to match Sourav's. The closest would in fact be Kapil Dev, whose stirring away victory in England (2-0 in 1986) was one of the great, dominant test triumphs for India. Then there would be Wadekar (1-0 wins away in England and West Indies, 2-1 home win against England but marred by the 0-3 hammering in England in 1974; that, unfortunately is the sum total of Ajit Wadekar's captaincy of India, and he actually ended with a 4-4 win-loss record which wasn't bad in the overall reckoning). Gavaskar, IIRC, had one win more than the total number of losses (something like 9-8 or 8-7), and Shastri won the only test he captained India in (although he disqualifies himself because he was never tested as captain beyond that one test and 1 ODI). Pataudi should also be in the reckoning, because he made India a competitive test team for the first time, especially in the period from the winter of 1967 to the 1969-70 season (and, of course, he was replaced just as things were coming together).

It is ludicrous to even contemplate replacing Ganguly at this point.

gvhvhg · Post by **gvhvhg** » Sun Dec 12, 2004 7:00 pm

hmm yea i dno what happened...i had put pataudi on the list

vkd_1717 · Post by **vkd_1717** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 12:51 am

PKBasu wrote:It is ludicrous to even contemplate replacing Ganguly at this point.

im not going to argue with the fact that he has achieved what no other indian has ... but why be the typical indian and accept something good when there is the possibility of achiving something great...i feel that this is what always leaves indians behind others

Sandeep · Post by **Sandeep** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 12:58 am

If what Ganguly is doing good then who is capable of doing something better is the question. And Ganguly i personally feel did what steve waugh did to his team. But Steve Waugh's team members performed when ever required. Ganguly also gathered abundant talent and formed a team which is playing as a unit. Now it is upto the team to perform. When team cannot perform, then even Steve cannot do anything.

vkd_1717 · Post by **vkd_1717** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 1:05 am

He would motivate his team, use a more agressive strategy if required, put pressure on the opponents.... notice their weakness before he plays them and comapre it to his own teams strong points...

vkd_1717 · Post by **vkd_1717** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 1:19 am

i doubt anyone here is going to agree with me here so lets leave it at this

PKBasu · Post by **PKBasu** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 9:05 am

vkd_1717 wrote:
PKBasu wrote:It is ludicrous to even contemplate replacing Ganguly at this point.
im not going to argue with the fact that he has achieved what no other indian has ... but why be the typical indian and accept something good when there is the possibility of achiving something great...i feel that this is what always leaves indians behind others

Actually, the Indian trait is to pull down anybody who is doing any good, at the first sight of something going slightly wrong. The ever-elusive goal of "achieving something great" (when the good itself has been relatively rare) invariably brings us down.
We see this quite abundantly in sports, but also in other fields such as politics. Narasimha Rao and Vajpayee, for instance, were classic victims of this -- as were Digvijay Singh and Chandrababu Naidu.
In sports, the examples are too numerous to recount, but here's a random sampling:
- when Dhanraj Pillay and the Indian hockey team were fashioning a magnificent revival of Indian hockey (having won the Asia Cup -- beating Pakistan and Korea -- and the Afro-Asian Games gold, won a 4-nation world class event in Perth, beaten Australia in Sydney, etc.), the IHF contrived to remove Dhanraj from the Indian team -- and it has naturally been downhill ever since (India had not been a world contender -- and even an Asian champion -- for the previous 27 years, but at the first hint that we were becoming "good" again, the IHF sought to achieve "greatness" instead, and we are again in serious danger of being relegated to the also-rans of hockey)
- when Pataudi was finally making India a world-class side, he was replaced by Wadekar (on that occasion, this decision did not cause too much immediate damage, because of the discovery of a young phenom called Sunil Gavaskar -- but the intent was similar)
- when Gavaskar himself seemed on the verge of finally forging a great team, the horrible Kotla episode occurred (in which Kapil and Patil played recklessly, India lost and Kapil was unfairly dropped for the next test in Calcutta, forever ruining the partnership that could have made Indian cricket great in the 1980s); Kapil and Sunny were both culpable on that occasion (Kapil had played 68 tests on the trot, and probably would have easily broken Sunny's record of 89 on the trot until he was dropped). Neither Sunny, Kapil nor (especially) the BCCI came out of this sordid episode smelling of roses.

Frankly, excessive intrigue is the bane of India -- and especially Indian sports. Excellence always suffers as a consequence. There is clearly the rising smell of new intrigue at the rotting core of Indian cricket at the moment. The captaincy "debates" now emerging are just one manifestation of this. The fall of Dalmiya is less than a year away, and Indian cricket is likely to be in serious turmoil as a result. Much like the British divided (ie, partitioned) India by attacking the one potential weak spot in the great Congress movement, so the ICC is cutting off the BCCI's growing dominance of world cricket by finishing off Dalmiya. It's pretty close to happening.

vkd_1717 · Post by **vkd_1717** » Mon Dec 13, 2004 2:31 pm

there are many of these traits that leave indians behind including the 2 we mentioned

jaydeep · Post by **jaydeep** » Tue Dec 14, 2004 9:40 am

With Records definetly Ganguly.

Jaydeep.

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