By David Wiseman
October 21st 2008 @ 3:12am
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Farewell Ganguly, Australian cricket’s ‘chief nuisance’
Just like Pakistan had Javed Miandad and Sri Lanka had Arjuna Ranatunga, when it came to being Public Enemy Number One in the eyes of the Australians, India had Sourav Ganguly. These three players have the same personality.
They loved being out their in the middle sticking it to the Australians, they loved knowing that they are getting under the skin of their opponents and most infuriating to the Australians, they could play.
The Australians don’t like being on the receiving end nearly as much as they like dishing it out and Ganguly was up with the best of them when it came to fighting fire with fire.
The 2001 series was his finest hour.
He knew how much the Australians wanted to win in India; how badly Steve Waugh wanted it, but he was firm, resolute and unyielding.
As Waugh would later write in his book, “I saw in Sourav a committed individual who wanted to inject some toughness and combativeness into a side that had often tended in the past to roll over and expose a soft underbelly.”
Once he retired and he had time to reflect, Waugh couldn’t help but admire his nemesis because ultimately the two weren’t that different.
“You don’t have to like or dislike him. You have to respect him,” Waugh said. “He’s tough and has played for a long time. There are certain things that rub people up the wrong way but that’s just him.”
Just like Waugh he was the ultimate competitor. “He’s the type of bloke you would want to have on your side. When you see an Indian side with Ganguly in the line-up, you know it’s game on.”
Similarly Ganguly is a member of the mutual admiration society.
“Whatever has happened, it’s an effort to win Test matches. Waugh is probably one of my role models and he is a champion player. He didn’t want to lose wherever they went. He lifted Australian cricket.”
The second Test of the series is the 22nd match Ganguly has played against Australia.
After the First Test he was averaging 32.91 against Australia compared to 41.93 overall. With just one century and six 50s against the Australians, he would have loved to have done better against them but that was Ganguly. Get in, stir up some trouble, get out.
A good batsman, but the Australians wouldn’t have held him in the same regard as Tendulkar, Laxman and Dravid.
More nuisance value with emphasis on the nuisance.
He was enigmatic.
He had numerous off-field distractions. He could be frustrating. Three of the four times he was run out in Test cricket were against Australia. How else can you explain a batsman of his quality getting out to Brad Hogg more than any other Australian bowler?
Did he compromise some of his own game for the sake of the team? In injecting some steel into the side, did he do this at his own expense?
History will record that right or wrong he was a player which did it his way and he wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
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Ara said | October 21st 2008 @ 8:24am | Report comment
I am no fan of some of Gangulay’s anticsbut he did bring a certain amount of steel in the Indian cricketers. Gangulay’s legacy is that it can be seen that the Indiac cricketers are no longer overawed by their Australian counterparts. Asian nations are not geared for sledging as traditionally their culture was based on respect. Some of the current crop on Indian cricketers are going over the top with sledging and rude behaviour but hopefully they will settle down as IPL will continue to improve cross-cultural understanding.
If you analyse our recent captains most of them are highly respected (Border, Taylor and Waugh). From the non-Australian point of view Ponting is doing for Australian cricket what George Bush has managed to do for America in the last 8 years.
Greg Russell said | October 21st 2008 @ 2:43pm | Report comment
My problem with Ganguly was never his attitude but his antics, ditto Ranatunga. Possibly we have a different way of thinking in this part of the world, but to Australasians the way to be tough and uncompromising is simply to be tough and uncompromising, not to play sneaky games at the edge of the rules with both opponents and officialdom - getting a runner because you were too slow between the wickets (Ranatunga in 1995/6), keeping S Waugh and the ICC Match Referee waiting at the toss for 20 minutes (Ganguly in 2002), etc. Perhaps to people on the subcontinent this sort of thing is culturally acceptable as oneupmanship, perhaps even admirable, but not in this part of the world. All of this led me to dislike both Ganguly and Ranatunga intensely, even if I could see their virtues.
And yet now I am going to say that I have come to like Ganguly. Huh? What happened? The answer is Greg Chappell. Perhaps the one good thing that happened to Indian cricket during Chappell’s tenure is that he took on Ganguly - as no-one had dared to before - and he persisted until he had won. The result was that Ganguly went away, and after a period of sulking he came back as a mentally tougher batsman and more committed team man. I won’t say that the Australians love him now (although they certainly love it when he is a boundary rider and they hit the ball to him!), but it is very evident that they now respect him and that there is no trouble between him and the Australians. Indeed, last summer he was one of the peacemakers. As a result of this psychological “reconditioning” Ganguly has returned as a better batsman, and he must wonder just what he might have achieved had he had this better balance when he was at the peak of his batting powers.