Monday, November 28, 2005
Kolkata ODI
Till date I was refraining myself from commenting on cricket affairs due to mainly two reasons:
Being a Bengali my comments will be construed as a biased one.
Secondly I was really sick with the nauseating happenings of Indian cricket.
But now after the Kolkata ODI, I am forced to make these following comments.
There are several issues arises after Kolkata ODI:
Behavior of Kolkata crowd
Secondly behavior of Greg Chappel
La affair’ Ganguly
Firstly let’s look at the behavior of Kolkata crowd:
I am really surprised by the kind of reaction from people all over India on the crowd behavior. I am surprised because, whoever read or followed the news one or two days prior to the match, must have been aware that there was expectation of crowd violence in Kolkata. There was unprecedented security cover for the match. So I will call it only naiveté on the part of the people who are dismayed by the crowd behavior. Rather I personally was worried about far worse situation and I must congratulate the administration and the public in general for a so subdued hostile response.
I call it subdued hostile response as one should keep in mind that the Kolkatan truly feel that Sourav Ganguly is ill-treated by the BCCI and specially by the Coach. There is lot of anger among the people against them, and there is full sympathy from the administration also on this aspect. One should remember that Kolkatan call Sourav as ‘Banglar Gorav – pride of Bengal’. He is an icon of Bengal. And when the people genuinely feel that their Hero is being ill treated, what kind of crowd behavior one should expect? For my friends of Mahrashtra I would like them to think, if the same kind of treatment were meted out to Sachin Tendulkar, what would have been the crowd behavior in ‘amchi mumbai’?
Regarding Booing of players, again I am surprised. It reminds me of same Rahul Dravid, who on scoring half a century in last world cup showed his bat towards the commentary box in response to the constant booing they were receiving from all and sundry. The greats like Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev or Azharuddin were also meted out with similar kind of treatment in their career. I have personally witnessed booing of Tiger Pataudi way back in 1970s. It is a part of the game for all great cricketers.
Second part is behaviour of Greg Chappel:
His showing a finger reminds me of similar gesture very recently by Gorge W. Bush. That shows the culture of the person. I will not comment on that, but I will definitely like to draw attention on the clash between Chappel and Ganguly.
From the very beginning there could not have been any bonhomie between the two. Let me point out the reasons:
It is the aggressive attitude against Australians, which made Ganguly what he is today, the most aggressive captain India ever produced. It is Ganguly’s India that the Australian juggernaut could not roll over. The Australian media cannot stop hating Ganguly. I don’t think there can be any Australian who will not hate Ganguly.
The basic approach of both of them is of opposite poles. Ganguly believes in building relationship, in faith on his players, in nurturing them. Let’s not forget it is he, who has never given consideration to regionalism, he has nurtured and supported Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Virendra Sehwag etc. He always believes in giving his players opportunities. Whereas in Greg Chappel’s language it’s only hire and fire. Chappel will never understand Ganguly’s philosophy of having faith on players. His Australian mind will not work that way.
Chappel knows very well that he will never get his freedom as long as Ganguly is at the helm of the team. He had to see the ouster of Ganguly. Two strong personalities with opposite views cannot work together. We don’t know ultimately who will be proved right.
We, Indians always like tothink with our heart rather than with our head. Logic is the last point in our thinking process. Presently as the Indian team is winning we are hailing Chappel nobody really trying to find out the reasons. But nobody even bothered to think whether we need a coach who wants usurp the role of the captain.
And thirdly ‘La affaire’Ganguly’
I personally believe he is getting a raw deal. He is being crucified by all and
Sundry. Partly he himself has to be blamed for this situation. For long he has benefited by his proximity with Dalmiya. Now he is targeted by all the Dalmiya baiters. He has become the sacrificial lamb in this whole murky board affair. I am really sick seeing Raj Singh Dungarpur on TV time and again commenting on Sourav Ganguly.
For the people who are shouting about his batting performances, I have a few statistics to look into. As a matter of fact I have, I have collected lots of statistics on the subject, which I shall produce in future, but let’s look at these figures for the time being;
Look at the following score in the ODI in 2005, can you name the cricketer?
4,2,6,123,1,9,93,67,2,11,19,39,2,2,2
Well it is of Sachin Tendulkar’s.
Now this is scorecard of another great player in 2004, guess who?
35, 90,32,23,3,12,79,26,13,26,20,0,37,16,1,81,5,17,4,1,17,10,53,9,70
note only 5 times more than 50 out of 25
Well it is Virendra Sehwag’s
Now this is another of 1996.
3,4,3,11,22,7,13,39,90,46,25,20,62,6,0,21,56,31,60
Only 4 times more than 50
Could not guess? It is Rahul Dravid’s
What I want to point out that all these players had some bad and some good times. But never there were such a hue and cry about them. Only in case of Sourav Ganguly we cannot tolerate any bad time. And the saddest part is, this is the person, who took over at a time when the great Sachin ran away from the responsibility. He not only took over but also made it Team India.
We really don’t know how to respect our heroes.
Being a Bengali my comments will be construed as a biased one.
Secondly I was really sick with the nauseating happenings of Indian cricket.
But now after the Kolkata ODI, I am forced to make these following comments.
There are several issues arises after Kolkata ODI:
Behavior of Kolkata crowd
Secondly behavior of Greg Chappel
La affair’ Ganguly
Firstly let’s look at the behavior of Kolkata crowd:
I am really surprised by the kind of reaction from people all over India on the crowd behavior. I am surprised because, whoever read or followed the news one or two days prior to the match, must have been aware that there was expectation of crowd violence in Kolkata. There was unprecedented security cover for the match. So I will call it only naiveté on the part of the people who are dismayed by the crowd behavior. Rather I personally was worried about far worse situation and I must congratulate the administration and the public in general for a so subdued hostile response.
I call it subdued hostile response as one should keep in mind that the Kolkatan truly feel that Sourav Ganguly is ill-treated by the BCCI and specially by the Coach. There is lot of anger among the people against them, and there is full sympathy from the administration also on this aspect. One should remember that Kolkatan call Sourav as ‘Banglar Gorav – pride of Bengal’. He is an icon of Bengal. And when the people genuinely feel that their Hero is being ill treated, what kind of crowd behavior one should expect? For my friends of Mahrashtra I would like them to think, if the same kind of treatment were meted out to Sachin Tendulkar, what would have been the crowd behavior in ‘amchi mumbai’?
Regarding Booing of players, again I am surprised. It reminds me of same Rahul Dravid, who on scoring half a century in last world cup showed his bat towards the commentary box in response to the constant booing they were receiving from all and sundry. The greats like Sunil Gavaskar, Kapil Dev or Azharuddin were also meted out with similar kind of treatment in their career. I have personally witnessed booing of Tiger Pataudi way back in 1970s. It is a part of the game for all great cricketers.
Second part is behaviour of Greg Chappel:
His showing a finger reminds me of similar gesture very recently by Gorge W. Bush. That shows the culture of the person. I will not comment on that, but I will definitely like to draw attention on the clash between Chappel and Ganguly.
From the very beginning there could not have been any bonhomie between the two. Let me point out the reasons:
It is the aggressive attitude against Australians, which made Ganguly what he is today, the most aggressive captain India ever produced. It is Ganguly’s India that the Australian juggernaut could not roll over. The Australian media cannot stop hating Ganguly. I don’t think there can be any Australian who will not hate Ganguly.
The basic approach of both of them is of opposite poles. Ganguly believes in building relationship, in faith on his players, in nurturing them. Let’s not forget it is he, who has never given consideration to regionalism, he has nurtured and supported Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Virendra Sehwag etc. He always believes in giving his players opportunities. Whereas in Greg Chappel’s language it’s only hire and fire. Chappel will never understand Ganguly’s philosophy of having faith on players. His Australian mind will not work that way.
Chappel knows very well that he will never get his freedom as long as Ganguly is at the helm of the team. He had to see the ouster of Ganguly. Two strong personalities with opposite views cannot work together. We don’t know ultimately who will be proved right.
We, Indians always like tothink with our heart rather than with our head. Logic is the last point in our thinking process. Presently as the Indian team is winning we are hailing Chappel nobody really trying to find out the reasons. But nobody even bothered to think whether we need a coach who wants usurp the role of the captain.
And thirdly ‘La affaire’Ganguly’
I personally believe he is getting a raw deal. He is being crucified by all and
Sundry. Partly he himself has to be blamed for this situation. For long he has benefited by his proximity with Dalmiya. Now he is targeted by all the Dalmiya baiters. He has become the sacrificial lamb in this whole murky board affair. I am really sick seeing Raj Singh Dungarpur on TV time and again commenting on Sourav Ganguly.
For the people who are shouting about his batting performances, I have a few statistics to look into. As a matter of fact I have, I have collected lots of statistics on the subject, which I shall produce in future, but let’s look at these figures for the time being;
Look at the following score in the ODI in 2005, can you name the cricketer?
4,2,6,123,1,9,93,67,2,11,19,39,2,2,2
Well it is of Sachin Tendulkar’s.
Now this is scorecard of another great player in 2004, guess who?
35, 90,32,23,3,12,79,26,13,26,20,0,37,16,1,81,5,17,4,1,17,10,53,9,70
note only 5 times more than 50 out of 25
Well it is Virendra Sehwag’s
Now this is another of 1996.
3,4,3,11,22,7,13,39,90,46,25,20,62,6,0,21,56,31,60
Only 4 times more than 50
Could not guess? It is Rahul Dravid’s
What I want to point out that all these players had some bad and some good times. But never there were such a hue and cry about them. Only in case of Sourav Ganguly we cannot tolerate any bad time. And the saddest part is, this is the person, who took over at a time when the great Sachin ran away from the responsibility. He not only took over but also made it Team India.
We really don’t know how to respect our heroes.
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