Rahul Dravid - Cricketer par excellence and now Captain of Team IndiaRahul Dravid is the new Test captain of Team India. He takes over from Saurav Ganguly who has been unceremoniously deposed from the One Day side and now being stripped of his captaincy as well. There is hardly any reason to have justified this move by the selectors on choosing Dravid as the captain ahead of Ganguly. Ok, forgetting about historical achievements, let’s take two criteria for being in the team and captaining - one - recent form and two - recent winning record. Ganguly scored a century and averaged over 50 in the last series played against Zimbabwe and India won the series 2-0 which was incidentally India’s first series win outside the Sub-continent in almost two decades!! Also last year, Ganguly was the second highest run-getter after Dravid who seemed to have been breaking each and every record, but that too by only a very small margin.





Ganguly’s track record as a captain is second to none. In fact his record is unmatched by any former Indian captain ever. Besides, he has an average of over 40 which is better than most of his predecessors or world captain save a couple here and there. He took over the team when Indian cricket was reeling under the betting scam and 5 consecutive Test losses under the steward of Sachin Tendulkar which is a record. From the ruins he made the Indian team the second most successful team by infusing new ideas, aggression and persisting with young talents.



Agreed that India won the last One Day series against the Lankans comprehensively under Dravid. But we all know one swallow doesn’t make a summer. Dravid incidentally was salvaged from being wrecked as a One Day player by Ganguly who gave him just the small space to be in the team after being dropped for being a ’sloth’ by making him the wicket-keeper. But that doesn’t mean that you sacrifice a proven leader to accommodate the ego of a new coach who defied all protocols and snubbed the selectors obliquely by calling Ganguly a mentally unstable guy who shouldn’t be in the team, let alone lead it.



Taking nothing away from Dravid, it is hard to believe that someone who had been almost 6 years under Ganguly as his deputy will be able to do anything better than him. If the 2007 World Cup is the reason why Ganguly is being dropped now, I am not bemused by the idea of the selectors of installing a new captain when the former has been doing exceptionally well till now with a record as a player that is surpassed by only the great Tendulkar in One-day Internationals.



Notwithstanding the selectors’ folly, Rahul Dravid has always been one of our most favourite cricketers. We wish him whole-heartedly for unparalleled success in the future. Congrats and best of luck Rahul. We all love you.