Tuesday, October 21, 2008

The Bengal Tiger finally becomes extinct...

Hi people

Good news everyone!!! Here comes one extinction that I am extremely proud of and I was looking forward to....... The departure of Saurav Ganguly..... Yipee!!

While we all know that Ganguly was perhaps India's most successful captains ever, in the emotion of his retirement, there are a lot of mistruths being quoted out there.... Here is my attempt at setting the record straight....

1) Youngsters in the team blossomed under his captaincy - Let me state that youngsters, however young they are, are not fools!!! They blossom because they need to in order to maintain their spot in a competitive environment of Indian cricket!!! How many people give credit to Kris Shrikanth, Kapil Dev and Azhar because Sachin matured under them. He matured out of his own self interest and of course with age....

2) He has taken Indian cricket to a different level - Well, with the times changing, Indian cricket had to change at some point of time... The Indian team underwent a change not because of him but in spite of him!!!

3) He brought aggressiveness in Indian cricket - Aggressiveness existed in Indian cricket. He just put it in a new box mainly through display of his arrogance, amateurishness and rudeness.... Making an opposing team captain wait at the toss is no display of aggression... It is more a display of stupidity!!! Removing and playing around with your shirt at the temple of cricket, Lord's is no display of aggression.... it is sheer disrespect towards the home of cricket....

4) It is against public opinion - Agreed if Bengal made up the whole country.... Why the whole of Bengal seems to rally behind him is pretty logical to me...you see, he is probably the only good thing that came out of Bengal after Tagore.. So they are bound to be emotional... And hey, public opinion cannot drive national selection and statistics are not on Ganguly's side....

5) He is the greatest left hander that India ever produced - Incidentally, I agree with this statement. Though I would like to know as to how many successful left handers has this country produced.... 5 , 6, 7... Well best among them is an achievement?? Well....ok....

Call me blasphemous on reading this post, bu somehow somewhere I know that at least someone is on my side....(the former chief of selectors and Andrew Flintoff!!!!)

Eminence

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Each para of the post is only boosting Dada's image.

Straighten the record :
Attempt 1 -
Shrikanth, Kapil and Azahar could not sustain long enough in the team to groom Sachin. Sachin's role is just to play and not to lead. We know he failed as a captain. There is no training / grooming for captains.. they have to survive on their own to groom youngsters. Bhajji / Yuvraj / Zaheer praises openly in favor of dada’s captaincy.

Attempt 2
The only 'different' level that I can see here is the aggression in the team. Ganguly was leading from the front in this regard. I don’t see anything wrong in this. Cricket does not have ethics (lessons to learn from Australian team). You cannot expect an aggressive team under Dravid - Never !!!

Attempt 3
Aggression can be well defined by the AUS. At that time - when Ganguly took off his shirt do demonstrate the superiortiy- it was verymuch required to show the world that its not the same old Indian team (in terms of attitude) but is the one that goes for the kill. The image has to change - not slowly but fast. The 'shirt' act with slang in captains mouth made the world sit straight and and take note of our team. Else we were treated as 'vegetables' – expecting no reaction to either good or bad results. Unfortunately, we thought cricket is a game of ‘gentleman’ !!!

Attempt 4
When it comes to sports..Bengal gets emotional. This has nothing to do with Ganguly. They were emotional about Kapil Dev when he was not selected in the team when Gavaskar captained the team during 80s. They did not allow the team to play in Calcutta saying 'No Kapil No Play'.
Talking about stats - you need to look at the objective and not the activity. A person may not be doing certain activities but still be achieving the desired objective. Thats wat counts at the end of the day.

Attempt 5
I dont think this is worth a comment.

Ganguly is all about leadership. A Guru cannot be a leader and a leader cannot be a Guru.
Sachin is a Guru and Ganguly is a Leader !!!