Sourav Ganguly trolls Ravi Shastri for the punctuality story

Indian head coach Ravi Shastri in a recent interview talked about his love for punctuality and how he never compromises on that. Describing one of the instances where he imbibed the importance of being punctual on his team. He had said that once when he was the interim coach of the Indian team in 2007 on the tour of Bangladesh he left Sourav Ganguly behind as the team bus left right on time even when he knew that the senior player was yet to join the team. He had also specified that ever since the former captain never arrived late.

Dada who also featured on the same show Breakfast with Champions was surprised to hear his claims. He laughed when Gaurav Kapur explained what Shastri had said. Ganguly gave it back to Shastri with a pinch of salt and said that the Indian coach shouldn’t be interviewed early in the morning (indicating at his drinking habit) as it is tough for him to remember what he’s saying, it is best if the man is interviewed later in the day.

“You don’t interview in the morning, don’t bring him (Shastri) on the breakfast show he wouldn’t remember what he said. When I meet him I will tell him what do you say on the breakfast show, that never happened I don’t know where he got that from,” Ganguly said while talking to Kapur.

“But don’t interview him in the morning, do it in the evening he will be able to recall things better (and both Ganguly and Gaurav shared quite a laughter),” he further added.

Shastri’s lesson for Ganguly

Shastri had said that he takes a lot of pride in being punctual as it is a great quality and that punctuality is paramount in the team.

“I take pride in being punctual. It is a great quality. In our team, punctuality is paramount. The bus leaves at nine, it will leave at nine. Only once I had to take the bus early in Bangladesh in 2007. In Chittagong, we were supposed to leave at nine and it got to nine. I said, ‘let’s go’. The local managers and all said, ‘Dada nahi aaya’ (Dada hasn’t come yet). I said, ‘Dada ayega gadi mein. Chalo.’ (Dada will take the car. Let us leave),” he about teaching Ganguly a lesson on punctuality.

“After that, whenever we left for practice sessions, Sourav was always 10 minutes before. Punctuality is very important in a team sport,” Shastri further added.

Here is the video of Ganguly’s interview part 2