Sourav Ganguly will go down as a great one-day player but the same cannot be said of the stylish left-hander in Test cricket as he lacked consistency.
However, I find this rating off the mark. Ganguly is as good at playing in Test matches as he is in playing ODI's. The difference is because among the Fab Four he is the one who bats the lowest in the batting order. A comparison with Laxman who at times have batted lower than him, will show that he is equally adept at playing Tests.
Ganguly played113 Tests and finished with an average of 42.17 whereas Laxman averages 45.25 in 100 Tests.
Mind you there is a small matter of Ganguly playing 49 out of 113 Tests as a Captain.
Now tell me how you rate him.
Cricket News Online Live.com on Saurav Ganguly's career
15 comments:
Gangulys contribution doesnt end with his statistics. Those who have been following cricket for a long time know how meekly we played our cricket .At one time we had nine buttered fingered guys in the side.Catches if at all taken received prolonged applause. Pataudi came and taught how to stop a ball coming towards the fielder and how to face a fast bowler.Then we had few good fielders like Borde Surti.Vemnkat Solkar Abid Ali. But our team retained the same meekness in its approach Then Ganguly came and transformed the team into a team which exhibited some self belief. Dhoni is continuing the tradition. No looking back from now on.
R,
If I am not mistaken this is your longest and most impassioned comment. :)
I agree that Ganguly brought an attitudinal change that Dhoni will hopefully continue.
How do you rate him as a bat?
He is a better bat in the one day than tests. But as it happens here he got dropped for the onedayers and retained for the tests. It can happen only here.He himself had made this point in so many other words.
Id like to rate Ganguly on what he did outside the arena than inside. Somehow I rarely thought about his exploits in the field. They never fascinated me except his cover drives.
R,
Everyone sees Ganguly in totality.
Cheers.
i would rate him as batsman who always needed some kick in his butt to keep himself going...a quintessential come back man...
I do hold the view that he perhaps did not fulfill his true potential at the test level and is certainly a hands-down
one-day great.
Those stats in comparison with Laxman is interesting. The feeling may be because of the fact that he never made any huge centuries, doubles (last quarter he did) more often.
It is hard to tell if he did have those opportunities. But he was the captain of the team and could have promoted himself :)... remember those theories of him being scared of the new ball in the later half of his career? Who knows.
But he did quite well in tests... whenever he scored those fifties and 70s they generally were quite quick.
Pan,
He is the Prince, so how do you expect him to sweat for a living. :)
Exactly Scorpi, he could hold his own as a Test batsmen.
Ganguly would have done better in tests had he batted higher than the number 5-6 position.. if u remember he made his test debut hundred batting at number 3... coming in at 5-6 diluted his test efforts plus Dravid and Sachin almost always outshone him...
There are not many batsmen who have scored more than 7000 runs in test cricket...
He is one of the greats but perhaps his legacy as a test batsman is undermined due to his achievements as a captain and as an ODI batsman, which right up there with the best of the best.
Q,
That is exactly what I wanted to highlight. His place in the batting order was low as to make him unnecessary.
Also imagine the toll of captaining a team for 49 matches at a stretch would have had a impact on his batting.
we don't rate him. we berate him.
NC,
You are obviously a Ganguly fan.:)
obviously, ott.
He started with a bang, ended with a lull and became the best Indian captain on the way. Mostly satisfactory, but as they say, could have been a lot better.
LB,
Certainly he could have done better, however, my argument is captaining a team like India and also his place in batting order were detrimental to peak performance.
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