Despite not being able to lead India to an ICC trophy solely – India were joint winners of 2002 Champions Trophy with Sri Lanka – Sourav Ganguly is often rated as one of the best Indian captains. His numbers as captain, especially in Test cricket, do make a strong case for him but it was Ganguly’s fiery character, his persona to look the opposition in the eye and backing of young talent to build the foundation of a team for the future that stood out.
Former India opener Wasim Jaffer, who made his debut when Sachin Tendulkar was the Indian captain, and played most of his cricket – 15 Tests – under Rahul Dravid, rated Ganguly as the best captain he has played under.
Jaffer who has played 5 Tests out of his 31 under Ganguly’s captaincy, said the current BCCI president was the one who made the Indian side after 2000.
“Sourav Ganguly was the one who made the team after 2000. He had the temperament, backed the players, and gave them a longer rope,” Jaffer told CricTracker.
Notably, Jaffer’s debut series – India-South Africa series in February of 2000 – was marred by match-fixing controversy which led to a complete overhaul of the Indian side.
Ganguly was appointed captain and he had to build the side from scratch. The former India opener immediately looked at the youth and brought in players like Virender Sehwag, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh in the Indian side.
Jaffer said Ganguly made Sehwag open, who had been a middle-order batsman throughout his career and also backed Zaheer, Yuvraj, and Harbhajan to do well.
“He made Sehwag open the batting and brought players like Zaheer Khan, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh,” Jaffer said.
Ganguly captained India in 146 ODIs, out of which India won 76, lost 65 and 5 were no results. In Test cricket, Ganguly had an even better record as a captain. In his 49 Tests as captain, Ganguly led India to victory on 21 occasions, losing 13 while 15 ended up as a draw.
Ganguly hanged his boot in 2008 after playing 113 Tests, 311 ODIs, scoring 7212 and 11363 runs respectively. Ganguly also had 23 ODI hundreds to his name which is the fourth most by an Indian after Sachin Tendulkar, Virat Kohli, and Rohit Sharma.
