Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly said that unlike football, cricket is a “captain’s game” and the coach should take a “back seat”. He reckons that “man management” is one of the key qualities a coach should possess.
Ganguly was at the Symbiosis International (Deemed University) to launch his book – ‘A Century is not Enough’, co-authored with senior sports writer Gautam Bhattacharya. He took part in a panel discussion along with Bhattacharya.
Talking about the coach’s role, Sourav said, “It is not like football. A lot of current cricket coaches think that they are going to run a cricket team like a football team, but cricket is a captain’s game and coach has to take a backseat and that is important.”
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Ganguly is arguably one of the most successful captains of the Indian team when asked what qualities a coach should have and he replied, “man management”, adding “hardly few have it”. He also asserted that the best advice he had received during his career, was to never pick a coach.
Sourav also said that he was fortunate enough to lead a team which was full of champions like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Zaheer Khan, and Harbhajan Singh. On the other hand, players such as Harbhajan, Zaheer, and Yuvraj Singh have said in the past they owed their careers to Ganguly as he backed them as the captain.
There are several talented players today but they have a doubt whether they will play the next game and asked about it, Ganguly said, “Virat (Kohli) needs to work little on it. I backed them because I saw them closely, I have seen them how they react to pressure.”
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Talking to reporters over the dismal performance of Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh in the ongoing Asia Cup in the UAE, Ganguly said it was just a temporary phase for these teams and they will overcome it. He believes that they are strong teams.
Ganguly also suggested that the current Australian team is the weakest he has seen in the last 20-25 years.
