Sourav Ganguly

[Linda]

I think he's a good OD player, but I CANNOT STAND THE BLOKE!:!(
The less I see of him the better.

 

[ReallyCrazy]

He's the worst captain of a bowling side. Look at the number of bowling failures. Not to mention the sledging he endorses. His batting is not much of a problem, but his captaincy is way too negative to win tournaments and he can't field.

How can you serioulsy blame Ganguly if India does not have good bowlers? It's not the captain's fault if the bowlers he has at his disposal are not good. All that he can do is give them field that they want to bowl to and the it is upto the bowlers to deliver.

Ganguly does not endorse sledging. He just gives it back. I have NEVER seen Ganguly sledge any player on the field except agaisnt Waugh in 2001 but it was the Australians who started it first. In this day and age, almost every player sledges but if an Indian does not just take and actually starts giving it back, he's known as arrogant. He's put to end an image that all Indian captains are nice and soft spoken.

Ganguly always just speaks what he feels and whats on his mind. Just coz Gangs made a comment about Akhtar, "We all see on the TV, don't we"...there's a furore but if any australian or brit does it (and they are still doing it), it's ok?

India have won the most number of tests and OD tournaments (reached the finals of) under ganguly. So I don't see how you can pass such an ignorant judgement.

 

[ReallyCrazy]

^ He gets everyone's attention doesn't he

I think he's a good player and I like him, I don't mind his arrogance but I don't think its an admirable characteristic. It just doesn't affect me, he's a great ODI batsman and that's all I care about.

Exactly jono, you said it! I don't know Ganguly personallly. Maybe he is arrogant but that doesn't really matter to me. All I do know for sure is that he is a bloody good player and is the best Indian captain in history.

I think he's a good OD player, but I CANNOT STAND THE BLOKE!
The less I see of him the better.

haha deep down you know he's better than Damien duck martyn

Originally posted by Swervy
i prefer it when some decent bowling makes him look like a fool

Swervy, don't you remember the test series in Australia where he was creaming your bowlers all over the park?

 

[Swervy]

Exactly jono, you said it! I don't know Ganguly personallly. Maybe he is arrogant but that doesn't really matter to me. All I do know for sure is that he is a bloody good player and is the best Indian captain in history.




haha deep down you know he's better than Damien duck martyn

Originally posted by Swervy
i prefer it when some decent bowling makes him look like a fool

Swervy, don't you remember the test series in Australia where he was creaming your bowlers all over the park?

lets not get onto this again....the guy struggles against good short of a length bowling, if you are on the mark as a bowler early in his innings you are almost guaranteed to get him out...his technique is flawed...early in his innings it is sometimes hard to beleive he is a first class cricket batsman let alone a test batsman.

When he was scoring runs vs Australia (it happen only a couple of times in fact),Australia bowled poorly to him.

He is a rank bad captain..no doubting it...he is clueless in the field as a captain and as a fielder....his attitude was summed up by that fake claim of a catch vs Gilchrist in the WC final..a disgrace.

He does well in ODI's coz he is confident that he isnt going to get any short pitched stuff.

I remember when India played England in the WC, England made Ganguly to look like a fool with the bat.

Overall, I dont like him as a batsman (although whe he gets going he plays quite well),and his personality appears to stink,but worst of all is his captaincy. His team is full of talent and yet they cannot win a thing.

 

[Swervy]

Martyn is a much better batsman than Ganguly

 

[Arjun]

How can you serioulsy blame Ganguly if India does not have good bowlers? It's not the captain's fault if the bowlers he has at his disposal are not good. All that he can do is give them field that they want to bowl to and the it is upto the bowlers to deliver.

He has tried Zaheer, Nehra, Srinath, Agarkar, Kumble, Harbhajan, Karthik, Joshi, the list goes on. all of them have been hit for more than 300+. In fact, 3 times, he has conceded 340+. With DIFFERENT bowling lineups. I rate all these bowlers very highly- MUCH MORE THAN THE CAPTAIN. In FC matches, for A-teams, they have performed very well. They have a lot of potential. They can run through sides. They can get an Australian side out for less than 200. They can revive memories of 50 all-out against Pakistan. But not under Ganguly as captain. Besides, he doesn't communicate well with the bowlers. HE NEVER LISTENS. Which is why Indian bowling is at an all-time low.

Compare that with the way Dravid handles his bowlers. Zaheer and Agarkar were hammered all over Gwalior, so he got both out of the attack and went in with a spinner at each end. That worked later on, as the scoring rate dipped and a few wickets fell. Even Zaheer, a target against Australia, adn the reason for Indians' bad performances, or good, got 3/49, 1 bad decision by an umpire not withstanding. In Mumbai, he opened with Sehwag, then Harbhajan, then brought in Agarkar. It worked to some extent. Ganguly, on the other hand, persisted with the pair of Zaheer and Nehra, when they were draining runs like a kitchen sink, without a wicket. That resulted in that astronomically high score. Kumble, who's not even considered good enough to stay in the team, can set fields for bowlers to good effect- being a bowlign captain helps a lot. It's good when the team's bowlign is nothing special.

He is a rank bad captain..no doubting it...he is clueless in the field as a captain and as a fielder....

When a Yuvraj or Kaif or even a Nehra makes a mess on the field, no matter how often it happens, Ganguly can't say anything, since he can't do any better.

summed up by that fake claim of a catch vs Gilchrist in the WC final..a disgrace

In trying out this nonsense called gamesmanship, he has forgotten about the game itself....

 

[Anil]

Gangs is a very good one day batsman. He isn't that good in tests, but has shown marked improvement in technique and staying power recently. He is a poor fielder and is really a liability on the field. He is an accurate slow-medium bowler who has won matches with his bowling o wickets which offer movement in the air, but is not effective on sub-continent wickets. He is tactically or strategically not a great captain, but the way he supports certain youngsters and stands by them inspires their loyalty and since the other seniors in the team really don't want the job that much, he is more or less the only choice. His aggression and in-the-face attitude is good and justified against certain opponents(like Australia).

 

[Swervy]

Gangs is a very good one day batsman. He isn't that good in tests, but has shown marked improvement in technique and staying power recently. He is a poor fielder and is really a liability on the field. He is an accurate slow-medium bowler who has won matches with his bowling o wickets which offer movement in the air, but is not effective on sub-continent wickets. He is tactically or strategically not a great captain, but the way he supports certain youngsters and stands by them inspires their loyalty and since the other seniors in the team really don't want the job that much, he is more or less the only choice. His aggression and in-the-face attitude is good and justified against certain opponents(like Australia).

last 40 tests:
66 innings,7 not outs,2077runs,4 x 100's,9 x 50's, average 35.20

so out of 59 times out, he has been dismissed 22 times for single figures, and a further 9 times for between 11 and 20 runs. To me, that is shocking for someone who is supposedly one of the better batsmen in the world.

 

[maximoose]

i have always thought of ganguly as a decent batsman, good captain and a reasonable guy. People r making comments about his fielding; and while i have to admit it is poor, he fielded well for those who saw the last india-pakistan game.

and i think this is very true...............

' best man to hold the office for india '

 

[SquidAU]

Ganguly the batsman......I like.
Ganguly the Captain and person...I loathe.

He comes off as very arrogant and his captaincy of recent times is full of nail biting nervousness when his team is in a losing position, eyes darting from left to right, trying to come up with something. Which, he does not come up with.
His time wasting tactics are another thing, which also seems like he gets other players in on the act as well!:O

 

[masterblaster]

As a player I like him, I like his aggression and the 'in your face' attitude that he has applied to this once week and very mild Indian Team.

I like the way he supports and unites his players, (who all speak different languages apart from Hindi, are from different states and all have different cultures).

This Indian team has been the most united of recent teams and Ganguly (as well as John Wright) have had a fair amount to do with that.

That being said, I would love to see my favourite player, Rahul Dravid be the captain. The man is an idol, an icon and is one of the most respected cricketers in the world today.

For a man of his integrity and his dilligence to get the captaincy would be ideal, and very good as well.

Although I would not want Dravid's batting to be affected by the burden's of captaincy, since Dravid the batsman is much more valuable to India than Dravid the captain.

I dont mind an out of form Ganguly as captain, but an ever dependable Rahul Dravid playing for India.

But I would mind an out of form Dravid as captain, and either Yuvraj, Badani, Kaif or Rohan Gavaskar in Ganguly's place.

 

[Anil]

last 40 tests:
66 innings,7 not outs,2077runs,4 x 100's,9 x 50's, average 35.20

so out of 59 times out, he has been dismissed 22 times for single figures, and a further 9 times for between 11 and 20 runs. To me, that is shocking for someone who is supposedly one of the better batsmen in the world.

I wasn't going off stats in that post....my point was that in tests, in the past 2-3 years, especially for tours, he has played quite a few significant, responsible, gritty innings which he was not known for before....in fact the first year or year-and-a-half as captain was a real shocker for Gangs as a batsman....where he struggled to put bat to ball(ok..maybe not that pathetic, but really, really bad) and it was solely his captaincy that rightly or wrongly saved his place in the team. As for being one of the better batsmen in tests, I don't think he is...off the top of my head, a list of better test batsmen in world cricket right now:

Tendulkar
Dravid
Laxman
Lara
Chanderpaul
Gibbs
Kallis
Kirsten
Smith
Vaughan
Thorpe
Inzi
Yohanna
Hayden
Ponting
Gilchrist
Martyn
Fleming
Richardson
.........

My point is he has been an average player in tests with a good innings every now and then for quite some time now.....he somehow maintains his image as a classy batsman from his successes in one day cricket, which IMO is a different cup of tea altogether....

 

[Linda]

haha deep down you know he's better than Damien duck martyn

I hope your kidding :P

Meh, Ganguly is probably a nice guy and all that, but its hard to like someone with dirty tactics like him. Sometimes I just think he doesnt deserve the captaincy with all his antics, like master blaster said, Dravid would surely be a better choice...

 

[masterblaster]

I think if any young boy should 'copy' someone batting, it has to be Damien Martyn.

His technique is oh so simple, much like Herschelle Gibbs, and he is truly magnificent to watch when in flow.

Much like Herschelle Gibbs and Rahul Dravid.

 

[Linda]

I think if any young boy should 'copy' someone batting, it has to be Damien Martyn.

His technique is oh so simple, much like Herschelle Gibbs, and he is truly magnificent to watch when in flow.

Much like Herschelle Gibbs and Rahul Dravid.

Like "a polite dinner guest at a party" some reporter put it.
Or last night it was "stockpiling like a squirrel in autumn".
Or "absolutely the classiest batsman in the world, no doubt about it" (that was me).

 

[Craig]

lets not get onto this again....the guy struggles against good short of a length bowling, if you are on the mark as a bowler early in his innings you are almost guaranteed to get him out...his technique is flawed...early in his innings it is sometimes hard to beleive he is a first class cricket batsman let alone a test batsman.

When he was scoring runs vs Australia (it happen only a couple of times in fact),Australia bowled poorly to him.

He is a rank bad captain..no doubting it...he is clueless in the field as a captain and as a fielder....his attitude was summed up by that fake claim of a catch vs Gilchrist in the WC final..a disgrace.

He does well in ODI's coz he is confident that he isnt going to get any short pitched stuff.

I remember when India played England in the WC, England made Ganguly to look like a fool with the bat.

Overall, I dont like him as a batsman (although whe he gets going he plays quite well),and his personality appears to stink,but worst of all is his captaincy. His team is full of talent and yet they cannot win a thing.

Bit like the All Blacks (awaits Neil's comments gloating about England), The Holland Football side, Internationalze, Pakistan.

You can set fields for good bowling, but not for bad fielding.

 

[Craig]

Correct me if I am wrong, but isnt Ganguly the only man to lead India to a series win against Australia since Pakistan toured in 99/00?

Regardless it was to a good partnership, some good bowling, but it is a helluva better then what most teams have done...