India captain attracts more criticism than praise

Sourav Ganguly happened to catch the same flight out of here as England's players yesterday. His gaze could hardly have been more distant, his manner less inviting. The optimistic soul who casually engaged him in polite conversation at the foot of the aircraft steps felt like a servant who had inadvertently intruded upon his private business.

Haughty: that's what they say about Ganguly. In a land where a certain aloofness may help to escape the chaos that can descend at any moment, Ganguly can drip with it. It is often said the Indian captaincy is a post second in importance only to that of prime minister; the Prince of Bengal gives every indication he believes it.

Ganguly's India are 1-0 up against England with one Test to play and his captaincy record of eight victories in 14 Tests stands comparison with any of his predecessors. Only Mohammed Azharuddin (14 from 47), Sunil Gavaskar (nine from 40) and Tiger Pataudi (nine from 40) have won more.

Only a year has passed since he led India to a home victory against Australia in one of the greatest Test series ever. His three Test wins outside India are unsurpassed - even if two of them did come against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh.

For all that, Ganguly, one of the few Indian cricketers from the upper classes, draws little warmth. He was frequently jeered in the second Test here by a crowd initially incensed at India's slack and disunited fielding on the fourth day, then frustrated by his understandable decision on Saturday to frustrate England's victory push by batting out time.

The Indian Express caught the general mood of India's fielding performance. In a piece entitled "Ganguly and the art of demotivation," it spoke of "a demotivated side led by a totally detached captain, disinterest dripping from his face." The simplest field change could not be made without an ad hoc committee seemingly reaching agreement by a particularly convoluted system of proportional representation.

Outside India, the media needs little encouragement to criticise Ganguly. Last year, he was depicted as spoilt rich kid to Steve Waugh's Australian blue-collar hero; Ganguly won the series. Now he is tactical duffer to Nasser Hussain's shrewd operator, dismissed by one hanging judge as "no more a captain than Captain's Bird's Eye"; the odds are that he will win this series as well.

His lackadaisical manner in the field was a surprise, because Ganguly's tactical acumen and combative attitudes had previously won respect. It was his off-the-field behaviour that tended to grate: his lax timekeeping, his airily dismis sive attitude to cricket conventions and a sloppy attitude towards physical fitness that had seen his own fielding standards slide into mediocrity.

He has led India to victories in the face of great adversity. Ganguly's India has possessed no settled opening batsmen, half-a-dozen wicketkeepers in a year, erratic fast bowlers and sub-standard fielding.

He feels slighted by having no official voice on selection, and was incensed that he was not consulted over India's squad for the first Test in Mohali. But the leaking of this fact left him so much at loggerheads with the Indian media that he has now virtually outlawed player interviews during a Test and answers questions himself with a brief, world-weary superiority.

Ganguly is still revered in Calcutta, and as long as he remains so closely allied to his fellow Bengali, Jagmohan Dalmiya, the drum-beating nationalist who chairs the Indian board, his captaincy remains secure.

The Bengalis have always been a law apart. There is an old Indian proverb about a Bengali clan that suggests, if you meet a tiger and a member of that clan in a forest, it is best not to begin by shooting the tiger. John Wright, India's Kiwi coach, scathingly referred to as "this foreigner" in sections of the Indian media, might soon have cause to recall the story.

If Ganguly lacks humility, then he fits the prevailing mood of cricket on the sub-continent. Cricket, roughly half a century after independence, has become a vehicle to rail against subjugation, to escape the meek and fatalistic reputation that once led Indian captains against England to all but ask permission before chang ing the field. If Ganguly is autocratic, then many regard that as the lesser of two evils.

Indian nationalism has brought a desire for success that is out of proportion with India's ability. Cricket is a marketing vehicle comparable with football in England. Dalmiya understands this dynamic; Ganguly must serve it.

He must also serve it with a Test average that stood at 46 before he became captain, and approaches half that as captain. Once a supremely gifted off-side stroke player, he now struggles so much against the short ball into his body that even Freddie Flintoff on a dead pitch can't wait to get the ball in his hands.

He also captains a side containing Sachin Tendulkar, who is one of cricket's greats. But too often India does not follow cricket, but follows Tendulkar. For Ganguly, in a job Tendulkar found too much, that must make the boos even harder to bear.