Former India captain and current BCCI president, Sourav Ganguly, backed the national side to win major ICC events, saying it's only a matter of time before Virat Kohli & company end the longstanding knock-out jinx.
The Indian team has failed to cross the last hurdle in multiple world tournaments since last winning one, the now-disbanded Champions Trophy in 2013.
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Ganguly, however, thinks it's only a saying of time before that changes.
"We will (win). In England (last year's 50-over World Cup), we played well, we lost the important game (the semi-final to New Zealand). The World Cups are like that. We played exceptionally well in 2003 and lost the final. That’s what the World Cup is. We will have a chance every time. We have tremendous players in this team who can take away World Cups. Then the World Cups are also about winning semi-finals and finals," Ganguly told India Today.
In the current times, though, dealing with the Coronavirus pandemic is the first priority. Ganguly said he has been in constant touch with the Indian team management, NCA head Rahul Dravid regarding the circumstances in the country and the roadmap ahead for potential return to training and on-field action in the future.
"Yeah, I am in touch with them. I have spoken to the captain a couple of times. I am in touch with the NCA head. Players are also very worried because the numbers are so high. The captain (Kohli) comes from Mumbai where it’s an absolute nightmare at the moment. So it’s quite natural that he will be little worried. All of us are."
"You don’t want to come out on a cricket field, at the end of the day it’s a sport and get infected. So as I said, we are looking into it and we are in touch with the players. I am in touch, Jay (Shah, board secretary) is in touch. The cricket operations people are in touch."
"We keep preparing FTPs and keep reshuffling them with time and keep looking at every option. As I said, until we don’t decide which is the day (for return), we have to keep shuffling."
Ganguly said international cricket has suffered badly because of the lockdown and the BCCI is regularly assessing the situation to be able to redraft the FTP.
"It’s applicable for everything. Domestic cricket is still fine. Even if you delay it by 2 months, it doesn’t make that sort of a difference but if you’re delaying international cricket, the FTPs and the IPL, every cycle goes for a toss," he said.
"The World Test Championship goes for a toss, the ODI championship goes for a toss, so everything changes. FTP scheduled programmes are cancelled, a lot less for India because for India, the IPL was cancelled. So from that point of view, as I said, we have to keep assessing," Ganguly concluded.
