Time to leave sir
Originally published on Saturday, September 17, 2005
If you believe in cricinfo's inside story on the Ganguly- Chappell rift (stories can be cruelly biased), then only you should read on. It's learnt that an honest suggestion by the coach was made public by the captain. And all it can lead to is debacle. I stated in one of my previous posts about how KPS Gill obliterated Indian Hockey circuit through some startling decision making and extreme egos. And we have witnessed in the past that when an individual becomes more important than the entity that he is a part of, then it destructs the whole entity. Needless to give examples, you can take Hitler's, who sank Germany along with himself, Ganguly seems adamant to do the same for Indian cricket.
It's very difficult for some individuals to accept bad things about themselves. They can't pass an unbiased judgement for themselves. Ganguly seems to be one of those. He still believes that he can fight back. But with this latest episode, I think he will be questioned even for his successful moves, forget about the ones that will fail and hence be cruelly carnaged by the media. It's difficult to imagine his future, unless Jagmohan Dalmiya also believes that he is above the goodwill of Indian cricket and pulls a rabbit out of the hat.
A coach has the power to give an honest advice, something that Ganguly himself demanded from Chappell. And his advice of stepping down from captaincy was not wrong at all. This is the problem with headstrong people. As much as their qualities can benefit when channeled properly, so can they destruct you when they go wrong. A sachin tendulkar would not have needed the coach to tell him to step down, if struck by such wretched form (mind you he has never got into such a low scoring rut ever). But then his lack of headstrongness was the one that kept denying him his choice of playing eleven, something that he believed contributed in a big way to his failed tenure at the helm. Ganguly's obstinancy has helped Team India in the past when he demanded Yuvraj, Kaif, Harbhajan, Sehwag and many others despite their failures and later converted them into a successful unit. But it was logical to support that move as one could see him having some sort of a thought about how he wanted the team to look like in the forthcoming days (and his picture of a good team was inline with most experts' opinion from what was available then). And all of these people were young enough and had shown glimpses of promise that their zeniths lied ahead. By the same hypothesis, if you try to judge his current support for himself (believing that he has an argument like - "if I supported people with constant failures, why should I not get something back when I am struggling?" - oh I am being so supportive to Ganguly, trying desparately to be in his shoes), you still can't sympathise with him. He has failed more consistently than all these blokes combinedly had and doesn't seem to know what vision he has for the team, apart from sinking it with himself.
I can't help myself reiterating the exceptional example of Nasser Hussain. During his reign, he was not too dissimilar in his approach to Ganguly, supporting his team, mentoring his youngsters, judging talents of the likes of Flintoff and Harmison and taking on his oppositions. But when he realised that his time had come, he decided to hang up his boots to make way for more deserving youngsters. He left with full dignity and left imprints of his own on English cricket. I am not sure that history will be so kind to Ganguly, although he, arguably, deserves it to some extent.
And then you have a VVS Laxman (excuse me for the topic change), who hits out at his critics after a feast against Zimbabwe. How can people think that they have the moral high grounds to lambaste people after such performances? I have no doubt about Laxman's BATTING (I have ample doubts about lots of his other aspects necessary to be a good cricketer, including his fitness) ability, but come on man, you have given better performances than this in our domestic cricket. I would have accepted your comments had they come even after a performance against the Mumbai team, not against a joke called Zimbabwe. Laxman, you still are precious to Indian TEST side, you are not agile enough to be in the ODI team (there are quite a few, Ashish Nehra to name one, who fall in this category, but then it's your bad luck that we don't have fitter replacements for them and we have quite a few for you. Don't whin about it, try to be fitter, if you can at all). You have taken a good step ahead, but that has been your problem man, everytime you take a step ahead, you think you have reached the pinnacle and rather than focussing, you start airing your views about how they have been doing injustice to you. Learn something from a man called Anil Kumble, you don't need your favorite opponents, the Aussies, to learn from. See how he fights his omissions from the team.
Back on the issue, I believe it's better to look at a problem from the solution end. We have to first think what if Sourav has to leave. Whom do we have to replace him with? Probably we have a better answer (or the only answer that can be better justified) now than we had in the John Wright days. With Greg Chappell there to enforce the cockiness and provide the flamboyance and the instinctiveness, the Ganguly part of the Ganguly- Wright combination, Dravid can sit back and do the strategic thinking, the Wright part of it, something that he is better off doing. He can pretty much leave it to Chappell to take on opposition captains and stuff like that & you can rest assured that there are few competitors to him in that department, even in his bald days in cricket.
It has been sad for an admirer of Sourav like me to watch the way he has faded over a large period of time. I don't know how we are going to address a rift between two most important persons of the touring party, when it is known to all and sundry. It must be difficult enough to be a member of the team at present, particularly if you are a newcomer. I can't think of a reconcilation here. A senior member of the team could help may be. But then there is no point in trying that out. It's very clear that the combination can't work and it will take just one more failure for the cracks to open up again. The BCCI simply has to make a decision about what they are committed to, Sourav's future or Team India's. That will decide if it's send-off time for Sourav or Chappell, after a marriage that got over even before the honeymoon.
If you believe in cricinfo's inside story on the Ganguly- Chappell rift (stories can be cruelly biased), then only you should read on. It's learnt that an honest suggestion by the coach was made public by the captain. And all it can lead to is debacle. I stated in one of my previous posts about how KPS Gill obliterated Indian Hockey circuit through some startling decision making and extreme egos. And we have witnessed in the past that when an individual becomes more important than the entity that he is a part of, then it destructs the whole entity. Needless to give examples, you can take Hitler's, who sank Germany along with himself, Ganguly seems adamant to do the same for Indian cricket.
It's very difficult for some individuals to accept bad things about themselves. They can't pass an unbiased judgement for themselves. Ganguly seems to be one of those. He still believes that he can fight back. But with this latest episode, I think he will be questioned even for his successful moves, forget about the ones that will fail and hence be cruelly carnaged by the media. It's difficult to imagine his future, unless Jagmohan Dalmiya also believes that he is above the goodwill of Indian cricket and pulls a rabbit out of the hat.
A coach has the power to give an honest advice, something that Ganguly himself demanded from Chappell. And his advice of stepping down from captaincy was not wrong at all. This is the problem with headstrong people. As much as their qualities can benefit when channeled properly, so can they destruct you when they go wrong. A sachin tendulkar would not have needed the coach to tell him to step down, if struck by such wretched form (mind you he has never got into such a low scoring rut ever). But then his lack of headstrongness was the one that kept denying him his choice of playing eleven, something that he believed contributed in a big way to his failed tenure at the helm. Ganguly's obstinancy has helped Team India in the past when he demanded Yuvraj, Kaif, Harbhajan, Sehwag and many others despite their failures and later converted them into a successful unit. But it was logical to support that move as one could see him having some sort of a thought about how he wanted the team to look like in the forthcoming days (and his picture of a good team was inline with most experts' opinion from what was available then). And all of these people were young enough and had shown glimpses of promise that their zeniths lied ahead. By the same hypothesis, if you try to judge his current support for himself (believing that he has an argument like - "if I supported people with constant failures, why should I not get something back when I am struggling?" - oh I am being so supportive to Ganguly, trying desparately to be in his shoes), you still can't sympathise with him. He has failed more consistently than all these blokes combinedly had and doesn't seem to know what vision he has for the team, apart from sinking it with himself.
I can't help myself reiterating the exceptional example of Nasser Hussain. During his reign, he was not too dissimilar in his approach to Ganguly, supporting his team, mentoring his youngsters, judging talents of the likes of Flintoff and Harmison and taking on his oppositions. But when he realised that his time had come, he decided to hang up his boots to make way for more deserving youngsters. He left with full dignity and left imprints of his own on English cricket. I am not sure that history will be so kind to Ganguly, although he, arguably, deserves it to some extent.
And then you have a VVS Laxman (excuse me for the topic change), who hits out at his critics after a feast against Zimbabwe. How can people think that they have the moral high grounds to lambaste people after such performances? I have no doubt about Laxman's BATTING (I have ample doubts about lots of his other aspects necessary to be a good cricketer, including his fitness) ability, but come on man, you have given better performances than this in our domestic cricket. I would have accepted your comments had they come even after a performance against the Mumbai team, not against a joke called Zimbabwe. Laxman, you still are precious to Indian TEST side, you are not agile enough to be in the ODI team (there are quite a few, Ashish Nehra to name one, who fall in this category, but then it's your bad luck that we don't have fitter replacements for them and we have quite a few for you. Don't whin about it, try to be fitter, if you can at all). You have taken a good step ahead, but that has been your problem man, everytime you take a step ahead, you think you have reached the pinnacle and rather than focussing, you start airing your views about how they have been doing injustice to you. Learn something from a man called Anil Kumble, you don't need your favorite opponents, the Aussies, to learn from. See how he fights his omissions from the team.
Back on the issue, I believe it's better to look at a problem from the solution end. We have to first think what if Sourav has to leave. Whom do we have to replace him with? Probably we have a better answer (or the only answer that can be better justified) now than we had in the John Wright days. With Greg Chappell there to enforce the cockiness and provide the flamboyance and the instinctiveness, the Ganguly part of the Ganguly- Wright combination, Dravid can sit back and do the strategic thinking, the Wright part of it, something that he is better off doing. He can pretty much leave it to Chappell to take on opposition captains and stuff like that & you can rest assured that there are few competitors to him in that department, even in his bald days in cricket.
It has been sad for an admirer of Sourav like me to watch the way he has faded over a large period of time. I don't know how we are going to address a rift between two most important persons of the touring party, when it is known to all and sundry. It must be difficult enough to be a member of the team at present, particularly if you are a newcomer. I can't think of a reconcilation here. A senior member of the team could help may be. But then there is no point in trying that out. It's very clear that the combination can't work and it will take just one more failure for the cracks to open up again. The BCCI simply has to make a decision about what they are committed to, Sourav's future or Team India's. That will decide if it's send-off time for Sourav or Chappell, after a marriage that got over even before the honeymoon.
posted by w_o @ 2:59 PM
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