He led from the front

Winning matches was his priority and that was his greatest gift to Indian cricket. On the strength of sheer statistics, Ganguly ranks above the rest as India’s most successful captain, writes Vijay Lokapally.

“Ask your bl…. captain,” hissed John Wright. The affable Kiwi, then India’s coach, was livid when asked what would be the composition of the team for the match against Pakistan the following day in the 2004 Champions Trophy.

Sourav Ganguly had shot down Wright’s proposal and the tension in the Indian camp was palpable. India lost the match in Birmingham and Ganguly accepted the blame. His authority in making the final decision in matters concerning his team, and the willingness to take responsibility for the debacle was what set Ganguly apart — he was a very different Indian captain.

Ganguly did not read any literature on how to lead a team. Neither did he stock up management manuals, for he firmly believed he was a born leader. Even when he was not the captain, he would spend time sorting out issues for others. Getting things organised before a match came so naturally to him and the decision of the authorities to hand him the charge of the Indian team in 2000 was quite right.

Those were difficult times for India. The match-fixing scandal had rocked cricket and India’s image had suffered a dent. Fans became suspicious of every defeat and it was left to Ganguly to navigate India through the turbulent waters. He showed immense faith in his team and backed the players to the hilt.

Temperamentally, he was best suited for the job as India’s skipper. He was aggressive, confident, ambitious and above all aware of the ground realities. Appraisals at the end of every series showed that he was improving at a rapid pace. He had begun to enjoy captaincy and Indian cricket seemed headed in the right direction.

Captaincy had been thrust upon his predecessors, Mohammad Azharuddin and Sachin Tendulkar. Both were reluctant to lead India, and even when they accepted the responsibility both remained aloof when it came to dealing with individual challenges. While Azharuddin expected each of his players to understand his role in the team, Tendulkar expected his mates to tackle problems with the ease with which he did. It just did not work because what came easily to Tendulkar was a monumental task for most of his players.

In the case of Ganguly, he adapted himself well, understood his role and realised early that his success depended upon his ability to get the best out of his players. He spent time in identifying his ‘men for the job’ and once he had evaluated them, he backed them.

Ganguly came from the old school wherein a player had to think about his partners. The essence of team spirit was instilled in him in his formative years.

It is to Ganguly’s credit that he asserted himself and commanded the respect of his players. True, he had been involved in clashes with some of his team-mates at some stage or the other but it never influenced his judgment of an individual. As a captain, he was harsh on left-arm spinners. He may have lost a few friends when he treated Anil Kumble with disdain at Port of Spain in 2002. He first conveyed to the leg-spinner that he was in the playing XI and then, on the morning of the match, dropped him without even taking him into confidence.

But then, Ganguly always stood up for his fellow players whenever he saw injustice being meted out to them. And that added to his stature as captain. The manner in which he backed youngsters such as Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and Virender Sehwag only confirmed that he had vision and also an eye to spot talented players.

“Captaincy was always a learning process for me,” said Ganguly, who began with a victory in the Dhaka Test against Bangladesh in 2000 and signed off with a win against Zimbabwe in Harare in 2005. He had once said that his main concern was his team and criticism only spurred him on to achieve his goals. “I always went by what my colleagues said rather than worry about the rest of the world,” he said.

Ganguly’s biggest achievement as India’s captain was to teach his team how to win. “To win overseas,” Kumble and V. V. S. Laxman would correct you.

Ganguly set a benchmark by winning a Test in every Test-playing country except New Zealand and South Africa. It was nice that captaincy did not have any impact on his batting. It also did not affect his relationship with his players. He was a captain who always kept his doors open to his players.

He was very good at analysing a game and that helped the team. The presence of Wright also meant that some fresh thinking contributed to the team’s progress. Ganguly was innovative and was never scared of taking risks. His frequent clashes with the Australians are now folklore as he beat them at their own game.

Tactically, old timers may pick Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi as India’s best ever captain. No arguments about that. The Sunil Gavaskar era was marked by emphasis on not losing. Kapil Dev led by instinct and made no secret of it. Azharuddin, Tendulkar and Dravid lacked the flair. They were quiet in their demeanour but Ganguly was amazingly demonstrative. At times he was accused of playing to the galleries as he built the image of an angry captain. If he had to assert himself, he would not be averse to making it known on the field. He would also not worry about taking on the authorities if it concerned the welfare of the team.

“I like things to happen my way,” he had remarked during his first season as captain. He held the same view until he lost the job in 2005.

Ganguly strove to be different. He had once remarked how his cricket went beyond wealth and adulation. Winning matches was his priority and that was his greatest gift to Indian cricket. On the strength of sheer statistics, Ganguly ranks above the rest as India’s most successful captain.