Sourav Ganguly being sacked as India captain and subsequently losing his spot in both Tests and ODIs still continues to be one of the most talked about incidents of Indian cricket. The events leading up to it received a lot of attention with former Australia batsman Greg Chappell, who was the head coach of Team India then, being at the forefront of it.
Not known for mincing his words, Ganguly has several times opened up about the ‘injustice’ meted out against him in 2005. In a recent interview with Bengali daily Sangbad Pratidin, he did the same.
Ganguly, who was dropped after returning from the Zimbabwe tour in 2005, said he never lost confidence because he knew he had scored runs against the likes of Glenn McGrath, Wasim Akram and Shoaib Akhtar.
“I didn’t lose confidence. I knew I’ll score runs if they play me. My coach didn’t go out in the middle to play Wasim, McGrath and Shoaib, I did that and managed to score runs against them. If I had done that successfully for 10 years then I can do that again provided if get the opportunity,” said Ganguly.
Agreeing that he was upset after the axing, Ganguly said it only made him more confident.
“Yes, I was very upset when was I dropped from the side but never lost confidence, not even for a second,” added Ganguly.
Ganguly, who scored 11363 runs in 311 ODIs with 22 hundreds to his name. and 7212 runs in 113 Test at an average of 42.17 and with 16 centuries, said Chappell should not be blamed alone for his axing.
