The distance between Dravid and Ganguly

By John Cheeran
This is a time when you need to point fingers; to point out what separates Rahul Dravid from Sourav Ganguly.
Indian skipper Rahul Dravid did not blame the pitch despite the crushing loss at Eden Gardens against South Africa. He admitted India had played badly.
Dravid had seen the pitch on the eve of the match.
Unlike his illustrious predecessor, Sourav Ganguly, the prince of manipulators, Dravid did not develop an injury on the morning of the match and pull out of the team.
Dravid played, lost the toss, lost the match. Fair enough.
That’s what I call character. A brave man, and a man who never runs away from his responsibility.
How can I compare brave man to a petulant, a coward?
A sense of fair play demands that I should not flinch from telling the truth.
Sourav Ganguly, the then Indian captain, ‘India’s greatest leader’ that he is, chickened out at the thought of playing Glenn McGrath, Jason Gillespie, Michael Kasprowicz on a grassy Nagpur wicket during the 2004-2005 Test series against Australia.
Ganguly was unhappy at the wicket prepared by Vidarbha Cricket Association, rivals of Jagmohan Dalmiya in the BCCI politics, and on the morning of the match he had his one of those mysterious injury virus.
Ganguly fell ill knowing that his captaincy record will be tarnished by a heavy loss.
It was then left to Dravid to lead Team India.
India lost the Test by 342 runs.
Now tell me what do you call a general who runs away from the battlefront?
Is that the Dadagiri? Bullshit.
If the Board of Control of Cricket Board had any sense of pride, it should have stripped Ganguly of the captaincy then.
If Ganguly had any pride as a leader, he should never have asked the captaincy back.
And remember that it was only a few days earlier, peeved at losing Indian captaincy, Ganguly refused to lead Bengal against Pune in Ranji Trophy.
So much for a leader’s qualities.
Here are a few links that take you back to Nagpur.

http://www.hindu.com/2004/11/18/stories/2004111801331700.htm

http://www.eians.net/stories/2005/01/31/31pi.shtml

http://cricket.indiatimes.com/articleshow/908982.cms