Ganguly in numbers

It is the time to be discussing Ganguly these days while we wait for the first test to begin...and so in that spirit.. here is an interesting analysis of Ganguly's impact as a captain and as a player. We keep talking about the Ganguly-Wright era, about how Ganguly brought a step-change in the Indian teams attitude towards winning, etc... but when we look at cold hard stats, how well did he really do?

Saurabh Wahi, who even by bloggers-standards seems to have a lot of 'free time' on his hands and conducts some real amazing analyses of cricketing stats at his blog, Vital Stats, writes:

Ganguly's "intangible contribution (to Indian cricket) is that he built a new sense of confidence and cockiness within Indian cricket, groomed youngsters and has a big part to play in getting Indian cricket to where it is now and no amount of graphical analysis can do justice to his legacy

But ..

"How many did he win, and lose? What was his record against the leading nations, and against the minnows? What was his batting record as captain and how did it compare with Tendulkar, Dravid (in ODI's & Tests), Sehwag (in ODI's) and Laxman (in Tests)? And lastly, how did he compare with his peers like Vaughan, Inzamam, Ponting, and Fleming."

Read the detailed analysis here.

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Sidenote: Tells you why the Pakistanis are so worried about Dravid more than anyone else (though, I am sure, Shewag also probably gives Woolmer a few sleepless nights, given his record against Pakistan and when it comes to Indian batting, they can never really lose sight of SRT)...

However, as the hangover from the celebration of the Ganguly-Wright era recedes and the more permanent euphoria over SRT's undeniable record-breaking exploits simmers in the background...two quiet men whose contribution cannot be understated ought to be celebrated - Rahul Dravid and Anil Kumble.

More about Kumble later but here is an interesting observation about Dravid from a plot in the above post which shows us how well Dravid has done ...even moreso than SRT...in tests that India has won! Dravid stands out as the chief contributer (batting-wise) in Indian wins..even better than SRT..although it is true that this data captures only tests in which Ganguly was the captain and as Saurabh points out, it does not include a significant inning by SRT (the 194* in India's win Pakistan in 2004 under Dravid.) Would be nice if such a comparison could be done overall.. not just in tests where Ganguly has led.. and maybe Saurabh will do that soon! :)

But in any case, in tests where Ganguly led the Indian side to victory, there is a big difference in Dravid's average (102.8 overall, 111.3 excluding Bangladesh and Zimbabve, the minnows) compared to anyone else in the Indian side. SRT's overall average in wins (69.9) falls significantly (to 53.3) if you exclude the wins against minnows, against whom his performance is significantly better (a Dravid-esque average of 103.4!).