Former India captain and current BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly touched upon a subject recently, which is perhaps the most controversial chapter of his cricketing career- his spat with head coach Greg Chappell in 2005.
After John Wright had decided to move on after a few good years at the helm with Team India, Ganguly lobbied to get Australia’s greatest batsman after Sir Don Bradman, Greg Chappell in as the head coach. Little did he know, the same Chappell ousted him out of his role as captain and from the team as well.
Ganguly, who was dropped from the ODI side in 2005 and from the Test squad a year later, was determined to prove a point after he came back to the Indian team. He averaged over 61 in Tests in 2007 and scored four hundreds before retiring in 2008 while in ODIs he was scoring at over 44 after coming back and smashed 12 half-centuries.
Talking about the same incident, Ganguly said, "I could deal with that because I knew within myself that I wasn't dropped for performance. As I said, I followed my heart. If my heart would've said 'You're not good enough, you've not played well enough and got dropped' that is a different thing. So I said what Greg did was a mistake but mistakes happen and you move on in life. Sometimes when you know that there is no help and it's all about you and your performance, you actually become a better player.”
Ganguly made a good comeback but decided to retire from the game in 2008 after having a good few outings with the bat. “And when I came back (in the Indian team) I realized that I was on the edge all the time and the only way I could survive was scoring runs. If I blipped a little bit, I'll be out of this team because I could see it. And I think that helped, it got me stronger, got me fearless. And I didn't expect anything, I didn't look too far ahead. I just looked at that Test match, that innings, and that series. And I think that helped and made me a better player,” he said.
"When I got dropped, I had played 10 years already, captained more than 200 games for India. So when I came back I knew that it was because I was good and I'm still good. I was 33 and I can play, that's very important. It's not whether the world thinks you can play, it's whether you think you can play," Ganguly said.
(India Today inputs)
