New Captain For The Indian Team, Your views Options

[unni]

"The Hindustan Times" has endorsed Saurav Ganguly and opined he should continue as Captain. (They've aimed their guns at the coach, Greg Chappell).

In the opinion of "The Times of India", now is the time to make a change in captaincy: Ganguly is unlikely to play in the forthcoming series against Sri Lanka. Rahul Dravid's batting has suffered when saddled with the responsibility of batting, that age is against him as a long-term leadership prospect. Tendulkar is working his way back from injury. According to TOI, the captaincy should go to Virendra Sehwag (that Kaif is yet to prove himself in Tests, and his place is uncertain even in the one-day squad).

The potential candidates are:

1 Saurav Ganguly
2 Rahul Dravid
3 Sachin Tendulkar
4 Virendra Sehwag
5 Mohd. Kaif
6 Yuvraj Singh (?)

What do our members' views?

I wouldn't be surprised if you say, "Who cares"?

[Akhtar]

Stay with Ganguly. He has led this Indian team to numerous successes. I don't see why he should be dropped so quickly. Given his innovative captaincy, he is also a world class player and has the support of his teammates.

[gkshyam]

I personally can't view any other choice beyond Ganguly and Dravid. The others are too young for it......

As far as the current scenario is concerned........Guess its better to stick with Ganguly.....since all the players have also strongly backed him in the current situation......And also given doubts on Dravid's form if over-burdened with captiancy....(may not be true all the time.....that's my personal view.......but still.....) And especially after all this chaos, I'm sure Ganguly would be extremely keen to prove himself as a batsman and a captain.......and would give nothing below his best......

So taking all these pointers into consideration.......I say, stick with Ganguly, atleast for the time being.......Then, depending on the series outcome for the team and his personal form, can decide for the future....

[vivekpm]

Coming from a Sachin Tendulkar fan, this may sound biased, but I feel it is right time for Sachin to take up the captaincy again.

Although not immediately, but probably after 4-5 months when he is settled well after his comeback, he can take up the charge. The reason is because Dravid, though good, won't be a good captain at least in one-dayers. And it is too early to promote Sehwag (mind you he too is not in his best form these days and captaincy may worsen things). Kaif is captaincy material, but I think he needs to settle down a bit more in the team. He is undoubtedly India's future captain.

And if we want Sachin to stay away from burden of captaincy and concentrate on his batting, make Dravid as test captain and Sachin as ODI captain. This will also do justice to Dravid, who has been treated very badly as far as captaincy is concerned. At this point in his career, Sachin has seen it all. Contrary to popular opinion, I don't think he is under any kind of pressure these days.

All this IMHO...

Cheers,

[desai2rn]

I think Ganguly deserves a chance to redeem himself. If he fails then
hopefully Sachin would be fit in the next few months, if he is willing to
take on the responsibility. Same with Dravid.

If Sachin or Dravid feels that thier performance would suffer than
Shewag seems like a good choice with guiding support from senior
memebers.

Ramesh.

[tahir77]

Saurav Ganguly

[qhabibi]

Well I Think Shewag Is Good Choice But It May Suffer His Performance........

[Ashraf]

No need for any openion now....It is official 'Rahul Dravid' is the Captain.Thank god for finally removing Gangu from the team.He was in the team just because of his captaincy for the last couple of years.Besides he is the most arrogant Indian cricketer ever.Only good thing for him was he won a couple of test series because of some great performance from his team mates(none of those victories due to his performance).Rahul Dravid is best Indian player in all respect.Wishing best for him.

[tracknest]

Rahul is the best option now. They need to groom Yuvraj and Sewag. Both are potential choices for future

[dhiren]

Its time to Kick Ganguly out from the team. For new Indian Team Captain my choice goes to Mohd. Kaif. I was captain in under 18 team. Under his captainacy, Indian won under 18 world cup. I think he can perform well through the guidance of experienced players Rahul and Sachin.

[princeali]

I think Ganguly deserves a chance to prove himself. So what if his batting form slumped for all those matches, every batsman goes through a bad patch. Look at Inzamam in the 03 World Cup, he had a terrible time and took some time off, redeemed himself and now he's back with a bang.

Ganguly is definitely more talented than many batsman on the current Indian team, these youngsters have to prove themselves to show they can take over Ganguly's spot. Also, he's in the same age group as Dravid and Tendulkar and yet he is considered finished when he still has alot of time left in him. Sure, he may be slower in the field, not go on well with some players, but that is no reason to ignore him, especially after his contribution to Indian cricket. Putting aside his Test career (in which a squad will be named later) his One Day record speaks for itself, more than 10,000 runs and over 20 centuries should be enough to give a serious thought on whether he should be given a chance. Instead the selectors just ignore him and make up excuses for his unavailability.

Everyone is forgetting that under Ganguly, the Indian team virtually turned around, made it to the World Cup finals. Now instead, in comes Chappel, criticizes John Wright's method of coaching as well as Ganguly's captaincy and thinks he knows everything about the state of Indian cricket, its really amusing. I hope he comes back and proves everyone wrong.

[unni]

I agree with Ali that Ganguly was a terrific captain for India. His record as captain betters the previous best (Azhar). I never imagined I'd find it difficult to choose between my all-time favourite, Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, and another Indian captain.

All batsmen go through bad patches. But, at a time when his place in the team was shaky, Ganguly did himself a disservice by speaking in public about what transpired between him and the coach. As per reports he was pouting, and the century against a weak Zimbabwe unjustifiably emboldened him to make his now infamous statement to the press. In the process he has made many enemies who are now baying for his blood.

His batting record in ODI's is impressive. And given his record as captain, he certainly does not deserve to be dumped unceremoniously.

If he fights his way back into the team with good batting performances, the selectors will have a tough decision to make! But cricket board politics may play a part.

[unni]

From: The Hindustan Times'


Sachin rises again. Sunset for Sourav?


While Indian cricket celebrates the return to form of its most famous sporting icon, Sachin Tendulkar, spare a thought for Sourav Ganguly too.

While Tendulkar is, in a manner of speaking, a genius reborn and is defying the grammar of batting and daring fate to defeat him like he did when cricket discovered him in 1989, Ganguly appears to be history.

The former captain was the new, aggressive face of Indian cricket, someone who dared to bare at Lord. He was the man who kept Steve Waugh, captain of the world's best team, waiting for the toss in three consecutive Tests.

The pundits felt that no Indian had humiliated the sledging Australians and the arrogant English in the manner the fragile-looking Kolkatan had. More important, he led a team of no-hopers to victory in that 2001 series against Australia, and even took them to the final of World Cup 2003.

On Thursday, when India went gaga over a second successive one-sided win over Sri Lanka, and feted new skipper Rahul Dravid and coach Greg Chappell, Ganguly again found himself out of the team for the next three ODIs.

Ganguly's loss of form, his idiosyncrasies, his proximity to Jagmohan Dalmiya and though not many will agree at the moment his having fought the establishment, meant that once he was down, he would have few friends.

Of late, he was struggling as a batsman and his low levels of fitness meant his time was up. Being dropped from the side even after he proved his fitness while scoring a scorching hundred in a Duleep Trophy game obviously meant nothing to a side that has almost on the strength of Tendulkar, Dravid and Irfan Pathan, done the impossible.

Since Chappell is being seen as the new face of Indian cricket though the Dravid-Tendulkar combine deserves no less credit it is very much possible that the selectors have no choice but to agree with the coach that Ganguly is the most corrupting influence on the team.

Tendulkar has an iron will. He complements his prodigious skills with a rigorous training regimen that would be the envy of a monk. Imagine, the man hit a double hundred in the Sydney Test in 2003 without hitting a single drive on the off side. Only because he had been dismissed a number of times earlier while trying to play similar strokes.

Today, when Tendulkar is not sure how long his fitness will last and realises that immortality and mortality go hand in hand, he is back defying the logic of safety.

In contrast, Ganguly, a much lesser talent, will have to draw inspiration from Tendulkar if he believes he can still make a comeback.

[unni]

From Cricinfo:

Indian squad for next three matches announced

Ganguly fails to make it

Anand Vasu in Mohali

October 28, 2005

It will take more than a Duleep Trophy hundred for Sourav Ganguly to make it back to the Indian one-day team. The national selectors kept their faith in the team that won the first two one-day internationals against Sri Lanka and overlooked Ganguly despite the fact that he had proved both form and fitness with a Duleep Trophy century for East Zone against North Zone recently. Kiran More, chairman of selectors, and his panel deliberated for less than half an hour and announced an unchanged squad of 15 for the next three matches.

Where this leaves Ganguly, and his one-day career, is not exactly clear. "He is fit but does not figure in the team at the moment," said More at a press conference following the announcement of the squad. "We have selected the best side possible for the next three matches. Sourav is a great player. We have tremendous regard for his outstanding performance as batsman and captain, and things are not in his favour at the moment. We realise he has not done that well of late, but he is a strong character and I am sure he will bounce back strongly. It is not fair to say that his one-day career is over, we can't do that to anyone. We have great regard for him but we feel the youngsters are doing a good job. They must be given enough opportunity to gain experience before the World Cup."

It is clear now that various factors - fitness, attitude and fielding among them - are being considered with one eye on the 2007 World Cup. "It will not be fair to field a player with three or four caps in the World Cup. He should have played 20 to 25 games and be reasonably experienced by then," More said. "We have enough options at the moment and are looking to have a pool of 22 players from whom we can pick the final World Cup squad."

More called the meeting, which was also attended by Rahul Dravid, the captain, and Greg Chappell, a "good" one, and added, "We have been having discussions for the past two days. The team has done very well in these two one-dayers, they have performed outstandingly. The body language is excellent, which wasn't there earlier. And the fielding has been great. There is a long way to go - we still have five matches to play in this series, but the signs are extremely promising."

Meetings involving key decisions, like the one taken today, have been fractious and long-drawn out affairs in the past, and board secretary SK Nair's statement claiming, as always, that the decisions taken were unanimous, would have normally been met with cynicism. However, it has been reliably learnt that on this occasion there really was no dissenting voice to the suggestion from captain and coach that the same squad be retained for the next three matches.

The selectors, sources reveal, were impressed with the commitment and performance of this squad and decided not to make any cosmetic changes. When More addressed the media he also made it clear that he would (not) divulge the names of players considered for selection, and that any conversations he may or may not have had with players and officials would remain confidential.

While this is not necessarily the end of the road for Ganguly, if the team continues to perform like it has in the last two matches it will only become progressively harder for him to make his way back into the squad. The squad for the last two matches of the seven-match series will be picked in Ahmedabad on November 6.

India squad Rahul Dravid (capt), Ajit Agarkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni (wk), Gautam Gambhir, Murali Kartik, Irfan Pathan, Suresh Raina, Y Venugopala Rao, Virender Sehwag, Harbhajan Singh, Rudra Pratap Singh, Yuvraj Singh, S Sreesanth, Sachin Tendulkar, Jai Prakash Yadav.

[Akhtar]

Is this Sreesanth fella quick ? Or is here merely another medium pacer ?

No Kumble :@