About Me

I ramble about a number of things - but travel experiences, movies and music feature prominently. See my label cloud for a better idea. All comnments and opinions on this blog are my own, and do not in any way reflect the opinions/position of my employer (past/current/future).

30 September 2005

Ganguly vs Chappel: Indian Cricket's new Lows

In the past week, a lot has been said about the fallout between Indian Cricket captain Saurav Ganguly and the coach Greg Chappell. For those of you who don't know - sometime during the recent Zimbabwe tour (IIRC, it was before the 1st test), Ganguly asked Chappell on which player (between Yuvraj Singh and Mohammed Kaif) to leave out of the test squad. Chappell told him, that on current form, Ganguly should consider leaving himself out and rather play both Yuvraj and Kaif. Later, there was a leak of an email that Chappell sent to the Indian Cricket board detailing Chappell's points on why Ganguly should no longer remain captain.

While there has been a large outcry, one of the important points is that Chappell is essentially right. Ganguly, while he is an inspirational leader, does not seem to be performing on the field. And this is not a temporary slump - it has been going on for over 2 years! It is high time that other players, who are just as talented and who are actually on form.

Maybe India should consider the off-field captain. After all there are some sports - notably Tennis - that uses this approach. If captaincy is about strategy and inspiration, the captain could easily do the job on the sidelines (which Ganguly does anyway considering the number of times he goes off the field). There are just too many talented players (on form) that go in the Indian middle order and frankly there is no place for Ganguly. This will be a bigger problem once Tendulkar is fit (and ready to play).

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