Dad wanted Dada to retire early after Chappell fight
New Delhi, Feb. 4: Sourav Ganguly says when he was kept out of the Indian team by coach Greg Chappell and was desperately fighting his way back, his father was unable to bear his struggle and wanted him to retire.
The former Team India captain makes this revelation in his soon- to- bepublished autobiography A Century is Not Enough.
During Chappell’s stint with the Indian team, Ganguly lost the captaincy and also his place in the squad for a while. Ganguly also says he felt
“angry” and “disillusioned” on being left out of the Rest of India squad for the Irani Trophy in 2008, a few months before he announced his retirement, and saw it as a clear indicator of how the selectors thought of him.
He was at his wits end on why he was dropped. He then decided to call up the captain of the team Anil Kumble and try to get to the bottom of the mess. “I asked him point- blank, did he think
I was no longer an automatic choice in his eleven? Kumble — the gentleman that he has always been — seemed embarrassed with my call. He told me he hadn’t been consulted before the selection committee chaired by Dilip Vengsarkar took this decision,” Ganguly writes in the book, coauthored by Gautam Bhattacharya and published by Juggernaut Books.
The publishing house has posted a free preview of the first chapter of the book on its website. He asked Kumble another question. Did he still believe that team wanted his services? “Kumble’s reply consoled me. He said if it came to him taking the call, he would pick me again for the upcoming Test match selection. I heaved a great sigh of relief.”
Ganguly then played domestic cricket — the little- known JP Atrya Memorial Trophy in Chandigarh — to convey a strong message to the selectors. The Indian team for the first two Test matches of the Australian series was soon announced. Ganguly found his name in it. Simultaneously, a Board President’s team was also announced. This was the secondary team that would take on the Australians in Chennai.
“The Board President’s XI is traditionally used to vet the potential of promising youngsters or assess veterans whose Test future is uncertain. I was included in it as well. These teams got picked by the new selection committee under K r i s h n a m a c h a r i Srikkanth,” Ganguly recalls.