Ganguly has copped blame for Pune’s dismal show

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Team owners being unforgiving of captains who don’t pull their weight is hardly new in sports leagues across the world.

But that is only one aspect to Sourav Ganguly being shifted from Pune Warriors captain to mentor in the next IPL season. There is also another: the days of players who are not super-fit and productive — even if they are ‘iconic’ — are over.
Unseemly as Ganguly’s deposition as captain (or promotion to mentor if you prefer) in the middle of the season might seem, the clear message is that reputation is no immunity any longer. The IPL, despite all the hoopla and razzmatazz, is business; sometimes cruelly so, and players who don’t deliver will be marginalized.
Some will debate that this is hardly new even in the IPL; or perhaps the debate itself is irrelevant. For instance, Rahul Dravid was sacked as captain of the Royal Challengers Bangalore in the first season of the IPL, and has since made a remarkable recovery with Rajasthan Royals, leading them quite superbly this season.
But Dravid, past 39, had the advantage of being an international player till only a couple of months back and was in ‘the drill’ so to speak, of playing competitive cricket every day. It has also helped enormously that he has been making runs and his team has been winning matches.
Ganguly, poor chap, have copped most blame for Pune’s dismal show though most of the team barring Steve Smith and to some extent Robin Uthappa and Ashish Nehra has flopped. But in cricket more than in any other sport, the skeptics start knocking at the door of the captain; and if the captain is himself struggling, then the skeptics turn quickly into cynics.
Ganguly hasn’t been the slowest on the field in this IPL, but he has been under more scrutiny than any other player, and this aspect has shown up repeatedly: in batting and even more agonizingly in fielding. When so many matches are being decided in the last over – several in fact off the last ball – lack of alacrity and quicksilver reflexes in the field can cost dear.
As has been seen through the spectacular efforts of Steve Smith for his own team through the season, and the exhilarating catch taken in tandem by Botha and Rahane for Rajasthan against Pune on Saturday, this IPL season has seen the fielding benchmark raised much higher than anything seen earlier.
Some of the guys out there have looked more acrobats than cricketers!
I must qualify that age alone is not the consideration in judging the worth of a player: runs and/or wickets and good fielding are what matter. But clearly the probability of older players being the more sluggish on the field is higher. This becomes more pronounced in Indian players, especially those belong to the Ganguly, Dravid, Tendulkar generation when fielding was still not considered as vital for survival as batting or bowling.
Indeed, Dravid and Tendulkar would be in the same bracket as Ganguly were they not scoring runs, or for that matter Muralitharan if he was not taking wickets. One can add a few more stellar names to this list whose sheer presence which was so vital in establishing the credentials of the league when it started are now being seen as dispensable.
The sport has changed dramatically in the last decade, and the T20 format, which demands high-octane energy, has put a premium on speed and surety of catching ability on the field: as much as batting and bowling consistency and strike-rates.
Those not measuring up will find themselves out of favour. While this has worked to the detriment of Ganguly this season, the writing is on the wall for all players surely.