Sachin Tendulkar quit captaincy to concentrate on his batting: Chandu Borde

Sourav Ganguly’s appointment as captain brought about a new era in Indian Cricket. In an interview to Sportskeeda, Chandrakant Borde, former chief selector of the Indian Cricket team, revealed the sequence of events that led to the appointment of the left hander from Behala, Kolkata as captain. Borde, who also played 55 Test matches for […]
 
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Sachin Tendulkar quit captaincy to concentrate on his batting: Chandu Borde

Sourav Ganguly’s appointment as captain brought about a new era in Indian Cricket. In an interview to Sportskeeda, Chandrakant Borde, former chief selector of the Indian Cricket team, revealed the sequence of events that led to the appointment of the left hander from Behala, Kolkata as captain.

Borde, who also played 55 Test matches for India during the 60s, scoring 3,061 runs and taking 52 wickets with his leg break, said, “See, if you remember, Sachin, we had sent him as a captain to Australia, and he led the side there, but when he came back, he didn’t want to continue. He said, ‘No, I want to concentrate on my batting.’ Therefore, I tried to convince him to lead the side for a long time because we were on the lookout for a new captain, a new generation.”
“But he said, ‘I want to concentrate on my batting because I could not get the performance that I wanted to put in for the team.’ And this is what happened. So, in fact, some of my colleagues were annoyed with me. They said, ‘Why are you insisting him to continue all the time!’ I said we are looking forward to the future, but then in the end we had selected Ganguly.”

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Krishnamachari Srikkanth, former Indian Cricketer and selector had stated that leadership came naturally to the southpaw, and that was exhibited in the way he led the side. He said, “Ganguly was proactive. He was the guy who was able to form the team combination. Like how in 1976 Clive Lloyd formed the winning combination (for the West Indies team), Sourav put the correct team together and then inspired them. That’s why Ganguly was a successful captain, even in abroad conditions. They started winning abroad. Ganguly is a born leader.”

A few days ago, in an online video lecture for Unacademy, Ganguly himself spoke about how helping the team away from home was his biggest achievement as a leader. He said, “My biggest legacy is that we left a unit that believed it could win away. We won in England in 2007 when I was a player and (Rahul) Dravid was captain. The leader was different but the team believed in England that we could beat them. No other side had beaten England in England apart from Australia in 25 years.”

Sachin Tendulkar quit captaincy to concentrate on his batting: Chandu Borde