Former India captain Sourav Ganguly is widely acknowledged for changing the phase of Indian cricket completely. When Ganguly took over the captaincy, Team India was surviving with match-fixing allegations, and the morale of the majority of players were down and out. At such times, Ganguly took the responsibility to change the scenarios which he did successfully.
Ganguly handpicked champion cricketers and brought them into the team. Also, he broke the tradition of bringing players from metropolitan cities. The Kolkata-born only cared about the real talent, which eventually helped India to dominate in world cricket.
Speaking about his own leadership, Ganguly took part in an online interactive session with Unacademy where he picked six such players who according to him were match-winners. The current BCCI president said that when India won the 2011 World Cup, the majority of players who contributed in the team debuted under his captaincy.
“That (2011 World Cup-winning team) team had seven or eight players who started their careers under me. The likes of (Virender) Sehwag, Dhoni himself, Yuvraj (Singh), Zaheer (Khan), Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra. So I think that’s a legacy which I was extremely happy to leave behind as a captain. And that was my biggest legacy that I left a side which had the ability of winning at home and away from home,” said Ganguly.
The former skipper also spoke about how he felt thrilled when he saw MS Dhoni lifting the world cup in 2011 as it brought back memories of the 2003 World Cup final when India lost to Australia.
“I remember I was at the Wankhede Stadium that night and I came down from the commentary box to watch Dhoni and the team go around the ground. In 2003 the team which I was the captain lost the final to Australia, so I was so happy to see Dhoni have the opportunity to win that trophy,” Ganguly added.
Ganguly led India in as many as 196 international matches where his side won 97 games and lost 79 contests. Remaining 15 games were ended as a draw. Ganguly’s winning percentage was 49.48%. He sits at the third spot in ‘most matches as captain’ amongst Indians.
