BCCI president and former India captain Saurav Ganguly is probably the most influential captain of modern Indian cricket. Popularly known as Dada, Ganguly is regarded as one of the best ODI batsman of all time and if not for Sachin’s majesty, he probably would have claimed the India’s best limited over batsman of all time. At different times in his career, Ganguly was one of the most and least consistent batsman for the team and eventually was dropped from Indian side in 2005 while he was captain. Ganguly made a comeback in tests 2006 for the tour of South Africa where he topped the scoring chart from visiting team and contributed to India’s test first ever win in SA. He also made ODI comeback in 2007 and scored 1240 in 30 innings at 44.29 before getting dropped for final time. Ganguly later announced retirement from Internation cricket in 2008 and it is believed that fans did not get closure on an epic batsman and leader.
Ganguly told Bengali newspaper Sangbad Pratidin about his feelings at the first time: “That was the biggest setback of my career. It was an absolute injustice. I know you can’t get justice all the time but even then that treatment could have been avoided. I was the captain of the team which had just won in Zimbabwe and I get sacked after returning home?
“I dreamt of winning the 2007 World Cup for India. We had lost in the final the previous time. I had reasons to dream too. The team had played so well under me for the last five years whether it was home or away. Then you suddenly drop me? First, you say I’m not in the ODI side, then you drop me from the Test team too”.
The most intriguing decision was why Ganguly was dropped when he was scoring so spectacularly in ODIs. “It was kind of unbelievable. I was dropped from the ODI side despite being one of the highest scorers of that calendar year. No matter how good your performance is if the stage is taken away from you then what will you prove? And to whom? The same thing happened to me,” Ganguly said in an interview with Bengali daily ‘Sangbad Pratidin’.
Ganguly recently turned 48 on July, 8 said: “If I was given two more series in ODIs, I would’ve scored more runs. If I hadn’t retired in Nagpur (November 2008), I would’ve scored runs in the next two Test series too. In fact, even now give me six months to train, let me play three Ranji games, I’ll score runs for India in Test cricket. I don’t even need six months, give me three, I will score runs”. (Well, fans would love that, won’t we? Guess we’ll never know!)
It feels that mistakes were made and due to unfortunate turns of event, we did not get to enjoy dada’s last few years of service towards Indian cricket but that in no way reduces the magnitude of his contributions to the team. In 2011, India will lift their 2nd ODI WC title and fulfill the dreams of a billion people, a dream that was made possible by dada’s commitment! Let us know what you think of Ganguly’s drop from international cricket.