No, not again
21-Jun-2001No, not again! But it is happening more and more often now to forceeven the die-hard optimist to think twice. Skipper Saurav Ganguly’swoeful lack of form with the bat continues innings after innings. Willhe, like the proverbial Phoenix, rise to soar the heights of greatnessfor posterity?Even the skipper himself does not seem to have all the answers thougha good bit of soul-searching reveals an honest urgency to quell alldoubts for ever. Just like his innumerable fans, Ganguly admits thatevery time he walks up to the crease, he expects to boom thosecharacteristic cover drives and lofted shots over the bowler’s head.”I expect it every time I walk out to bat….I have struggled in thelast 5-6 Test innings. I think I should be back as quickly aspossible,” the skipper says with the desperation in his tone defyingthe sombre countenance.Is he trying too hard as was evident when he seemed to go across tothat Andy Blignaut delivery which ended his knock in the secondinnings of the second and final Test before it could even start? Innormal circumstances, he could have easily played it down the pitch.”Yeah, I know. The lack of form doesn’t affect the technique but maybethen you try too hard. Then you try to do something extra which youshouldn’t be doing. But if you want to play 10-12 years of Testcricket, you got to be strong enough to come out of it.”Blame it on too much one-day cricket? “Yes, we do play too much ofinstant cricket, that’s for sure. And it’s really difficult to switchon from one to the other. But we can’t help it because that’s wherethe money comes from.”Ganguly believes a rotation policy on the lines of the Australiancricket team could help reduce burden on the players. “I believe arotation policy could be a solution. Not because it is a busy season.It is because we should have 16-17 guys ready for the 2003 World Cup.They could only be confident if they perform in the centre.”To prove his point, Ganguly gives a reasoning. “I will give you anexample. In one-day cricket, the top four get an opportunity to batmost. Those who come at number five, six or seven usually get the lastthree-four overs and sacrifice their wickets in order to score quickruns. After it has happened in a few games, suddenly in one big gamethe top three fail and they find themselves out in the middle.”One good ball and the player is out. Then he realises he has donenothing in the last five games. Now if there is a rotational policy,he might come to bat up in a few games, score a 80 or a hundred andnext time he is in a crunch situation, he would have the confidence. Ithink we should have this policy and we would go for it.”It is said often that though India has brilliant individual playersthey fail to win crunch matches as a team. “Believe me, honestly, wedon’t want to finish our career when people say we were good playersbut we couldn’t win as a team. Previously we couldn’t win crunch gamesas we did not have good bowling. But now we have a fairly goodattack.”The attack has undoubtedly improved but there must be some reason whyour bowlers are not able to pitch it up. Is it because of an inherentstyle or lack of strong shoulders? “I would not say so about Ashish(Nehra). He bowled superbly without giving Andy Flower any width.Probably Srinath could do a bit but that has been his tendency rightthrough his career. I think we got to work on it.”If you watch Streak and Blignaut, they are probably not the bestbowlers in the world. But they boweld to a fantastic line and length.We probably have to do it as quickly as possible.” The captain mayhave high regard for Nehra but the left-arm seamer fron Delhi sawhimself out of the triangular one-day series despite an impressiveshow on the fast and bouncy tracks of Zimbabwe.It was only after tremendous pressure from the team management thatthe selectors decided to retain him for the tri-series. Such instancesare normal in the career of an Indian captain who has to be contentwith a team not always of his choice. But Ganguly plays it downdiplomatically.”I won’t say every time I didn’t get the team I want. There have beeninstances when I haven’t got the player I wanted but that’s going tohappen. Six or seven people sit together and everyone has an opinion.Some opinions might differ.””At the end of the day, the selectors are the best judges. We arethere to give suggestions. Honestly, I will tell you in all my one anda half years, about 75 per cent of the time, I have got the team Iwanted.”One of the ways to counter the whims and fancies of selectors is tointroduce a contract system and Ganguly supports the idea wholeheartedly. “We favour it. As cricketers we need security. It is withany individual, whether you play cricket or you have a job or you do abusiness of your own, you got to be secure in life. I should get up inthe morning and realise my life is secure. It is true with anyindividual. We have already given our opinion to the Board.”A contract system would also ensure that cricketers play for the teamrather than for themselves to secure their place in the squad, feelsthe skipper.Ganguly, who found himself at the receiving end of fierce criticism,often bordering on personal, during the entire Australian series,feels that while writing about matches, a journalist shouldconcentrate only on the game.Taking a dig at newspapers which invite foreigners to write columnsfor them, Ganguly says, “I think we have guys who watch cricket, whohave played cricket, who can write and who can sell in India. Don’ttell me somebody like (Sunil) Gavaskar, (Dilip) Vengsarkar or KapilDev will not sell as much as an X, Y or Z”.Ganguly also rubbishes similar innuendoes hurled at his married life.”There have been really a lot of rumours in the magazines which wasreally, really sad and disappointing. It was all rubbish. I am very,very happily married and me and my wife are still together. We havegot a lovely life. These things have never bothered me because youwrite anything you want but as long as my wife and I are happy, itdoesn’t matter.”