Over the last several months, I have grown from someone who is a very big supporter of Ganguly. One who is convinced that it was Ganguly who transformed the fortunes of the Indian cricket team. Someone who was certain that Ganguly is the Indian cricket’s best captain over the last 40 years. Someone who was more than 100% convinced that Ganguly will lead the board and as a result of that, the Indian cricket team itself to greater heights to someone who is convinced that Ganguly is the worst board president over the last 40 years. Let me try to explain.
Past articles related to Ganguly
I have written a few articles before this one that focusses on some other part of the game or the players but there are passages in those articles that criticises Ganguly as an administrator. This article focusses only on the failure that Ganguly is, as a board president. A few days ago, I read one nice article on the website www.cricbuzz.com written by Aayush Puthran in which he has provided a report card of the 10 months of Ganguly’s tenure as the BCCI president. I tend to agree with him. If not specifically for the reasons he has mentioned but certainly from a cricketing standpoint.
Ganguly has undoubtedly been the most vocal of all the board presidents. I have read Srinivasan’s comments or Dalmiya’s comments but they mostly stick to the functioning of the board. I have never seen them tread onto the cricketing aspect of things. As I write this, it has emerged that it was Srinivasan who saved Dhoni’s job. I will write about that in another article.
Ganguly’s comments and the result
Manjrekar’s experience
Firstly, when Ganguly became the president, he likened that to the time when he took over as the captain. He failed to understand that the board’s functioning was nowhere close to how disastrous the team was when Ganguly took over. Match fixing saga, Tendulkar resigning his captaincy, lack of success outside of India, a team of ridicule from all the foreign commentators of being exceptional in India but lambs abroad etc.
Secondly, he also went onto say that the commentators will be given freedom to express themselves but Manjrekar’s experience will tell you otherwise. Not only was Manjrekar removed from commentating in IPL, he was subsequently removed from the BCCI panel of commentators itself. So much for Ganguly allowing the commentators to express themselves freely. It is emerged that Manjrekar wants to comeback into the commentary team for IPL and subsequently for the international games as well.
Poor Australian tour preparation
More recently, he said that he wanted Kohli and his team to win the series in Australia at the end of this year. However, he went onto schedule IPL till the 10th of November with hardly 20 days before the first test. This will leave the players with practically no time to prepare against a team that is high in confidence. Together with the Covid induced quarantine, the Indian team is ripe to be taken to the cleaners. It is advantage Australia even before a ball is bowled. Thanks to Ganguly and to his lack of foresight.
Aayush’s article
Let us look at the article written by Aayush. I would like to comment only on a couple of the points. Ganguly promised contracts for the first class players but till date they are not inplace. It is not clear whether the contracts will be implemented anytime soon. The first class players are under tremendous pressure. The ones who go onto represent the country or at the least play for any IPL franchise will be fairly settled but think of the ones who neither played at the international level nor have they played for any franchise. For most of them they do not know anything outside of the game.
Sorry state of affairs of a first class cricketer
They give their entire life to play the game at the Ranji level and retire in about 12-15 years. Once retired, they are clueless what to do after their playing days are over. The classic case of Shri. M. J. Gopalan comes to mind. He delivered the very first ball in Ranji cricket but when he passed away, all he had was just one room which was divided between living and kitchen. Back then, the board wasn’t this rich but now, the board does not have any excuse. The board must ensure that every first class cricketer is well paid and they must be given a clear plan post retirement.
On a question regarding how the board will function, he stated that he wants the board to be the best in the world. After his tenure, is the board even close to being the best in the world? I do not think so. Did the board have highly efficient selectors now that they are well paid? Did he transform the so called NCA? Ganguly, did he appoint any committee to analyse the World Cup debacle or the New Zealand series disaster? The answer for all the questions is a big fat NO.
Ganguly’s international player status unutilised
All of these goes to show that irrespective of whether the president of the board is a distinguished former international cricketer and that too a successful captain of an international team, if your heart is not in the right place, there is absolutely no point in having such a person of repute as the president. The same applies to Ganguly.
I would rather prefer a Srinivasan or a Shanshank Manohar as the president whose only motive is money rather than have someone like Ganguly of whom a lot was expected in terms of good preparation for any away series, better pay structure for the first class players, much freer commentators, selectors based purely on merit and performance and credibility of the team given top priority but absolutely nothing has been achieved.
There are few other points in that article that shows Ganguly in a poor light. Having said all that, it is not just Ganguly but it is the culture of the board that needs a drastic change. I will write about the functioning or the non-functioning of the board in another article.
What is your opinion of Ganguly the board president? Do you think he could have done more?