Ganguly must learn to think as a captain
Anand Vasu - 10 October 2001
There are times when nothing is as important as a touch of inspiration. The
best batsmen stumble, stutter and look woefully out of their depth when
faced with a situation that's outside the normal. When the going gets
tough, different people have different ways of dealing with things. Rahul
Dravid is the kind of cricketer who digs deep, spends a long time at the
crease and waits for the rhythm to return. Sachin Tendulkar is the kind of
man who goes for his strokes, begins to middle the ball with regularity and
gets back in stride; but what about Sourav Chandidas Ganguly?
A tremendous knock against some quality opposition in unfamiliar conditions, one that any batsman would be proud of. But hang on a second. Sourav Ganguly is not 'any batsman.' He is the captain of the Indian cricket team.
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The Indian captain has a rather strange problem. Despite being in great
nick in the shorter version of the game, the skipper regularly runs into
problems. When he moved perfectly into place and laced the first ball of
the Standard Bank Triangular Tournament to the cover fence the signs were
ominous for the opposition. After getting off to a flyer in the company of
an unusually scratchy Sachin Tendulkar the skipper seemed to lose
direction. After piling on a mammoth 193 opening the batting, Ganguly was
dismissed for 127. At that stage Tendulkar did not even have 60 runs to his
name.
Now no one can take anything away from a batsman who has made 127 runs in
just 126 balls with 14 fours and four sixes. A tremendous knock against
some quality opposition in unfamiliar conditions, one that any batsman
would be proud of. But hang on a second. Sourav Ganguly is not 'any
batsman.' He is the captain of the Indian cricket team.
As captain, Ganguly reacted to the situation before him in a manner that
can only be described as instinctive and short-fused. Instead of playing
the situation on merit, Ganguly let the game flow out of India's
control. With nine wickets in hand and 193 runs coming off 35.2 overs at a
run rate of 5.5 India were well set to put a 300 plus score on the board
and pile the pressure on the South Africans. Strangely however, the fall of
the first wicket saw Rahul Dravid trudge out to the middle. The momentum
was broken immediately, a couple of quick wickets fell and India fell well
short of the mark. Add to this the fact that Shiv Sunder Das, making his
limited overs debut was asked to bat at number seven and it is clear that
Ganguly was at least a bit confused.
Why was Ajit Agarkar sent in to bat ahead of Das? A stab in the dark
perhaps. Does this mean the Indian captain is really at a loss for ideas or
a plan? Hardly. It's the captaincy equivalent of what Ganguly does when he
faces a few too many dot balls on the trot. He waltzes down the track and
gives the ball an almighty belt. And that is something that hardly ever
achieves the desired result. What Ganguly needs to do, and quickly, is
separate his captaincy from his batting.
To carry the team with him, Ganguly must dig deep and play himself into a
position of strength. There are no short cuts to beating a team like South
Africa and this Indian team knows that. To defy all odds, a stated aim of
Ganguly, and beat South Africa in their own backyard, the captain has to
realise that the fight will be a long hard one. A sustained campaign of
high intensity cricket will not just surprise the South Africans, but will
get India back to winning ways.
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