‘My coach didn’t go out in the middle to play Wasim, McGrath and Shoaib, I did’ – Sourav Ganguly on losing confidence after being dropped

Sourav Ganguly, the former Indian skipper, said that he was confident of staking his claim back into the national team after being dropped. Back in 2005, the Prince of Kolkata was dropped following the tour of Zimbabwe, but he came back and even played in the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. On a number of instances, he has talked about the ‘injustice’ against him.

Ganguly, who recently turned 48, was aplomb as he had successfully faced the likes of Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram, Glenn McGrath and many other quality bowlers in his career. After making his comeback, Ganguly played his last match for India in Nagpur during India’s Tests against Australia in 2008.

Does something like this happen?, says Sourav Ganguly

“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,” Ganguly told to Sangbad Pratidin.

Ganguly’s brawl with Greg Chappell is an open secret and the duo was at loggerheads when the latter was the head coach of Team India. However, Ganguly, who’s the current president of the BCCI, feels that Chappell shouldn’t be blamed alone and he was wasn’t happy after confidential information got leaked.

“I don’t want to blame Greg Chappell alone. There is no doubt about the fact that he was the one who started it. He suddenly sends an email against me to the board which gets leaked too. Does something like this happen? A cricket team is like a family.

“There can differences of opinion, misunderstandings in the family but that should be sorted out with dialogue. You are the coach, if you believed that I should play in a certain manner then come and tell me. When I returned as a player he had specified the same things then why not earlier?” he added.

Recently, Ganguly also said that he needs to train for around three months for scoring runs for Team India at the highest level. He is one of the greatest captains India have ever produced along with the likes of MS Dhoni, Tiger Pataudi and Kapil Dev.