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Does India's sucess signal the end of the road for Ganguly?

foe

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
Does India's run of success signal the end of the road for Ganguly?

Since the 2003 WC, ganguly's average in ODI's is no worse than yuvraj /sehwag....
yet these 2 seem a certainity in the squad while ganguly seems to be evryone's favourite whipping boy!!

as of now the Squad looks something like this....

1.Sehwag (?)
2.Tendulkar
3.Dravid
4.Yuvraj(?)
5.Kaif
6.Rao/Raina
7.Dhoni
8.Pathan
9.Yadav
10.Agarkar
11.Harbhajan

players in Bold indicate sure selections/ guys with guaranteed places in the team!

Does this indicate no room for Ganguly?
 

foe

School Boy/Girl Cricketer
YUVRAJ'S Stats:

Career Batting average :30.54
Batting Average since 2003 WC : 31.70
( if his performances against Bangladesh n zimbabwe are taken away, this average drops to 27 )

SEHWAG"S Stats:
Career Batting average :32.00
Batting Average since 2003 WC : 29.49

GANGULY's Stats:
Career Batting average :40.65
Batting Average since 2003 WC : 30.50
 

King_Ponting

International Regular
foe said:
Does India's run of success signal the end of the road for Ganguly?

Since the 2003 WC, ganguly's average in ODI's is no worse than yuvraj /sehwag....
yet these 2 seem a certainity in the squad while ganguly seems to be evryone's favourite whipping boy!!

as of now the Squad looks something like this....

1.Sehwag (?)
2.Tendulkar
3.Dravid
4.Yuvraj(?)
5.Kaif
6.Rao/Raina
7.Dhoni
8.Pathan
9.Yadav
10.Agarkar
11.Harbhajan

players in Bold indicate sure selections/ guys with guaranteed places in the team!

Does this indicate no room for Ganguly?
Simply put. yes
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
foe said:
Does India's run of success signal the end of the road for Ganguly?

Since the 2003 WC, ganguly's average in ODI's is no worse than yuvraj /sehwag....
yet these 2 seem a certainity in the squad while ganguly seems to be evryone's favourite whipping boy!!

as of now the Squad looks something like this....

1.Sehwag (?)
2.Tendulkar
3.Dravid
4.Yuvraj(?)
5.Kaif
6.Rao/Raina
7.Dhoni
8.Pathan
9.Yadav
10.Agarkar
11.Harbhajan

players in Bold indicate sure selections/ guys with guaranteed places in the team!

Does this indicate no room for Ganguly?
First of all, taking stats since 2003 WC is looking too far back to justify selection for TODAY's team.

So lets be realistic and look at 2005 stats. Here they are for the top Indian batsmen. I am giving figures after taking out the minnows.

Here they are in the order of their batting averages.

1. Dravid......45.5
2. Kaif.........40.3
3. Sehwag...35.8
4. Tendulkar.35.2

5. Ganguly...18.7
6. Yuvraj.......18.2

Clearly Ganguly and Yuvraj are in a category by themselves that is why Yuvraj is increasingly finding himself amongst the first whose place in the side is being questioned. Its not a question of bringing back Ganguly to replace Yuvraj but of dropping even Yuvraj to accomodate the youngsters banging loud and clear on the selector's doors.

But there is a bit more of statistical mumbo jumbo to it. Just look at these figures.

Indian top order batsmen in the order of their scoring rates (per hundred balls) in ODI's against Non-minnows in 2005

1. Sehwag.......106.6
2. Tendulkar......86.8
3. Dravid...........78.5
4. Kaif..............74.6
5. Yuvraj...........74.5

6. Ganguly........54.0

Once again Ganguly and Yuvraj(his one time beloved young colleague) bring up the rear but there is a glaring difference.

Ganguly is by himself with 20 runs separating him and fourth placed Yuvraj !.

The difference between him and Sehwag, the other batsman you have equated with him erroneously, is 52.6 per 100 balls. That converts to a differnce of 158 runs per fifty over innings !!!!!!! So dont even talk of him and Sehwag in the same breath as of today.

I havent checked but I would be surprised if it is not BY FAR the worst scoring rate amongst top order batsmen in the world in 2005 !!

If everyone batted like Ganguly we would end up with 162 runs in fifty overs !!

Add to that the HUGE difference between Yuvraj's and Ganguly's (so called) fielding !!!

No sir, there are many very valid reasons for ganguly not being in the side or for Yuvraj being considered before him.
 
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shaka

International Regular
Yuvraj probably has the edge of Ganguly because of his brilliant fielding abilities.
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
Now add the runs he scored against the minnows in 2005. The batting average moves up smartly from
18.7 to 20.9 !

and the scoring rate climbs(?) from 54.04 to 54.71 !!!

At least Yuvraj murders Minnows averaging over 100 at 84+ per 100 balls. :sleep:

Ganguly needs to improve that WEEEEEEEEEEEEEE bit more.
 

Jono

Virat Kohli (c)
SJS pretty much said it all. Sehwag, whilst still not performing to the best of his abilities, is playing a lot better than Yuvraj and Ganguly this season. A lot better.
 

honestbharani

Whatever it takes!!!
yeah, and even during the limited time both spend at the crease, Yuvi looks a lot more fluent than Sourav ever did.
 

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
foe said:
Does this indicate no room for Ganguly?
YES, unless someone in the team fails consistently for next 3-6 months and Ganguly scores consistently well in domestic circuit (if he plays). :cool:
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
The World Cup is still a long way away and in the one day team Ganguly still has real chance of returning some time in the future.
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
The thread title is a bit misleading :)

Its not India's success that may signal the end of the road for Ganguly, it is the relative merits AND actual performances of the alternatives to Ganguly for Team India.
 

Top_Cat

Request Your Custom Title Now!
If Ganguly came back into the side as non-captain and was able to keep his ego in check, I think there's still room for him. I saw him very early on when he hit hundreds in his first couple of Tests and he was incredible to anything outside off-stump. I can't believe that he has lost that. From what I remember, he was also quite good at handling the short ones, certainly better than the mess he is now.

As the situation stands with his gigantic ego and inability to fit in, it's time Team India moved on.
 

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
Jono said:
He means whilst Ganguly has been in the crease this year, don't get carried away.
Well He said Yuvi looks a lot more fluent than Sourav ever did. If he is talking about this year..then yes, if he really means EVER as in 'EVER' then how about I say NEVER. :p
 

Sanz

Hall of Fame Member
Here is a gem from IS Bindra..who some people think is going to be a saviour of Indian cricket ;) :-

From President's Desk

04th, November, 2005


During the Jaipur One-dayer between India and Sri Lanka, two Kolkata-based correspondents sought my reaction to the perceived notion in some cricketing circles that the Pawar Group is responsible for the ouster of Saurav Ganguly from Team India. I know who is propagating such a warped theory. I tried to recreate the sequence of events to clear the air.

The first seeds of calumny were sown when the Indian team was in Zimbabwe when an itinerant correspondent linked Ganguly’s captaincy issue to board politics. I thought that was an aberration, but now I find that was part of a systematic campaign to malign the Pawar Group.

I told the two Kolkata journalists that these fictitious stories were circulated with an intent. Here I must appeal to the media not to smell a rat at every nook and corner, it will only spoil the fair name of cricket. Also, there has to be a difference between administrators who live on cricket and those who live for it. For years I have been saying that administrators should not get mixed up with players and selectors who should be insulated from board politics.

Honestly, I took little interest in politics of players and matters of selection. Even as the president of the board I scrupulously stayed away from these issues, except on matters of player discipline. There were a couple of instances when I had to put my foot down and insist on admonishing errant players, though some of my colleagues in the board wanted me to wink at them for reasons other than cricket.

The two gentlemen from the media stunned me by asking whether board politics was responsible for Ganguly’s problems. My answer was: Ganguly’s present predicament and trauma have nothing to do with the equations in the board. He has unwittingly been dragged into the unsavoury happenings in Kolkata Cricket. I asked them to just think rationally and they will realize whether the Pawar Group could have had any interest in keeping Sourav out? That’s how my friend from Calcutta plays his politics. He is prepared to sacrifice even his near and dear for his political survival.

It is common knowledge that four out of five selectors report to Kolkata for instructions. Even Soura may not believe the preposterous story that he’s the victim of board politics. It is apparent as to who is calling the shots and if he looks back and pieces together the advice he got from various people, he can track down the real culprit responsible for his present misery. As far as I can see the simple fact is that Sourav’s father Chandy Ganguly and Jagmohan Dalmiya have never seen eye to eye on matters relating to the running of the Cricket Association of Bengal, Chandy being a highly respected former CAB secretary. My friend Jaggu only bought peace with the Gangulys by making them believe that it was he who got Sourav the captaincy and also an extension when everyone was baying for his head. But, the moment he realized the elegant left-handed batsman has outlived his utility, he quickly seized the first available opportunity to dump him. ;)

See how carefully Sourav’s exit was planned. Ever heard the board asking for an exhaustive report from a coach midway through the tour. And that for what. If the board was interested in sorting out the spat between Greg and Sourav its president or any other senior official should have rushed to Zimbabwe the moment the coach and the captain started fighting openly. Moreover, why such a confidential and explosive e-mail was asked to be sent to so many people.

I have a sneaky suspicion that someone led Ganguly up the garden path by advising him to deliberately make his differecnes with Greg public. Then Greg was asked for his version. Then the mother of all leaks, a copy of the confidential e-mail from Greg was quietly handed over to a vernacular journalist.

If Jaggu thought the leak would deflect public attention from his own trickery at the now aborted Annual General meeting he was mistaken. The AGM was not put off because of the extraneous reasons but because of his bullying tactics of filibustering to delay the election. Here I must say that the entire Zimbabwe episode made all of us hang our heads in shame because no cricket administrator would like the image of Indian cricket to be tarnished.

Jaggu’s next move exposed him completely. He is not the one to run to the mountain. Someone who used to summon the first overseas coach of the Indian team John Wright to Kolkata to discuss sundry things, he was seen flying out to Chennai, taking a late night flight en route to Mumbai for the Review Committee meeting the next day. All for a late night meeting with Greg to douse the razing fire. What on earth made him do that? Sheer desperation to wriggle out of the hole he had pushed himself into. A deal was struck and contours of which are emerging gradually.

For once, Jaggu was caught between the devil and the deep sea! If he had sacrificed Sourav he knew he would invite the wrath of the Kolkattans and if he had forced Greg to leave then the consequences would be disastrous nationally as well as internationally. Just when he was looking for an escape route, Sourav’s elbow came in handy for him. If I know Jaggu, he would have advised Sourav not to play in the Challengers in Mohali. He thought, he would kill two birds with one stone, one making Sourav ineligible for selection and, perhaps, to kill the Challenger itself by denying Mohali the opportunity of seeing a great batsman in action.

Once Sourav failed to turn up at Mohali, things have started falling in place for Jaggu. He next told the national selectors to spread the story in the media two days before they were to meet to name the captain that they had no choice but to give captaincy to Rahul Dravid since Sourav didn’t play in the Challengers on grounds of fitness. As part of the same scenario, Sourav was also told that he need not go to Melbourne to attend the ICC meeting of captains.

The media plants were nothing but a balloon to gauge public reaction as well as to prepare the Kolkattans for the dethroning of Sourav.

The story is not yet over. Sourav decided to play in the Duleep Trophy to prove his fitness and form as required under the new fitness law for the players. Chairman of selectors kept saying that the door has not been slammed on Sourav and he could force his way into the side provided the selectors are convinced of his fitness and form. When they met to select the team for the third, fourth and fifth ODIs, the selectors were upstaged by a close confidant of Jaggu who told the television channels that Sourav would not be in the side! Where does the Pawar Group come into the picture in all this.

http://cricketpunjab.com/president-message.htm?
 

SJS

Hall of Fame Member
Top_Cat said:
If Ganguly came back into the side as non-captain and was able to keep his ego in check, I think there's still room for him. I saw him very early on when he hit hundreds in his first couple of Tests and he was incredible to anything outside off-stump. I can't believe that he has lost that. From what I remember, he was also quite good at handling the short ones, certainly better than the mess he is now.

As the situation stands with his gigantic ego and inability to fit in, it's time Team India moved on.
Ganguly as pure batsman, back in his best form, without all his historical baggage can still fit into an Indian side.

BUT thats a lot of tough conditions to fulfill and there isnt too much sand left in the hourglass. Ganguly will be 34 coming July. He is the oldest current Indian player other than Kumble.

It can be done but is iffy ...
 

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