Ganguly hails Team India

Sourav Ganguly in an exclusive chat with MiD DAY, hails Indian cricket's current state

Sourav Ganguly in an exclusive chat with MiD DAY, hails Indian cricket's current state

Mahendra Singh Dhoni's luck and pluck have earned him plaudits by the bucket. So much so that, even his slip-ups have not attracted the kind of harsh comment which captains are subjected to nowadays.

The Indians celebrate a wicket in the third Test against New Zealand in Wellington

Dhoni's insistence on batting on the fourth day of the Wellington Test against NZ was weird, considering he ultimately set the Kiwis a 600-plus target armed with a bowling attack which even alarmed the likes of Ricky Ponting's Australians.

The record books will state forever that India earned a historic Test series win in NZ after 1967-68 and not the fact that 1-0 could well have been 2-0 had Dhoni been less conservative and shown some respect to the weather factor.

However, Indian cricket completed the circle as it were in the recently concluded series in New Zealand. By winning the first Test at Hamilton, the new Millennium Indian team ended up winning a Test in every Test playing country.

This is no mean achievement considering India did not win a Test outside the sub-continent from 1986 to 2001.

And before 1986, the last Test win abroad was in Melbourne 1981. Prior to that: Sydney, 1978. These gaps drive home a point and that is, modern Indian teams have well and truly scored over their predecessors.u00a0

And when one talks about modern Indian cricket, the name Sourav Ganguly can never be far away. It was under Ganguly that India broke the away Test win jinx. The journey to win a Test (if not a Test series) in every country began in Bulawayo 2001. That India managed to achieve that during the Ganguly years save when it came to South Africa and New Zealand, is a tribute to the former captain's mettle.

MiD DAY caught up with Ganguly in Bloemfontein (where he is preparing with the Kolkota Knight Riders for the second edition of the IPL) to talk about the current state of Indian cricket and how it has gone forward.
Excerpts:
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Well, another victory abroad for Team India...
It was a fantastic win in New Zealand. I think, Indian cricket in the last eight-nine years has gone forward series wins in Pakistan, England, West Indies, doing well in Australia etc.

It could well have been 2-0 instead of 1-0 in NZ...
1-0, 2-0 doesn't matter. The bottom line is that they won the series. I thought we did exceedingly well in Napier to save that Test. Batting for two days was a phenomenal effort.

Doing well abroad is exactly something you set out to do when you became captain, isn't it?
Yes, it's true. And it is good to see that we are still going forward in this particular aspect and the boys are doing so well. It's more or less the same bunch people like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh and now Gautam Gambhir, who has been simply superb. These are the same bunch of guys who have taken Indian cricket forward. I may have just been the captain in 2001 and till 2005 but it's the team which wins you games.

You led India in New Zealand 2002-03 where we lost both Tests and the one-day series. Did you come back from that tour saying to yourself that these NZ conditions are too strong to conquer?
No. Even we could have won in that series if we kept winning the tosses. They were close games with teams getting out for cheap scores.

Where would you put India in the world rankings?
I think Australia, South Africa and India are the three best teams in international cricket. New Zealand obviously have gone down a long way and trying to rebuild. England is also a good team and once they get settled they will be a strong contender.

I think we are among the three best teams. The only thing India have to do is to beat South Africa and Australia in a Test series in their backyard which does not look an impossibility.

I don't know when they are touring South Africa, I think it's next year. Hopefully, people like Sachin, Rahul and Laxman will keep playing. A lot will depend on how long they will play. They are very important members of the Test team.

What is it that makes this side special?
I think it has got the confidence of winning. When we came on the scene as players in the late 1990s, there wasn't that belief of winning overseas. The culture has also changed in Indian cricket in terms of fitness.

There have been fast bowlers who have come on. Look at the way Zaheer Khan and Ishant Sharma have been bowling.

It's just a group of talented players there's many (talented) people there. And I think, more importantly, it's that confidence that we can win now. It's not just happened today. It has been happening for the last seven to eight years.

Look at our overseas performances... a squared series in Australia (2003-04), then going to Pakistan (2003-04) and winning there for the first time, the Test series win in the West Indies, from there a series win in England.
The belief that we can win overseas is critical here. When I came into the team in 1996, we were a different team.

Over the last six to seven years we can see in the body language that they actually believe in their abilities.
It's one thing playing and not believing. I can see it - the way they train, think and go about their matches, the calm confidence.