Former BCCI selector reveals story behind Sourav Ganguly's appointment as captain

Former BCCI chairman of selectors Chandu Borde has divulged how Sachin Tendulkar’s doubts in carrying on with captaincy of the Indian cricket team opened the way for Sourav Ganguly’s appointment as their new captain.

It was during early 2000 and Indian had just come back from a disappointing tour of Australia where they were whitewashed 0-3 in Test and won just one game out of 14 games in the tri-series.

Despite the fact that Sachin emerged as the highest run scorer for the men in blue in the Test series deep inside, he wasn’t convinced with his performance and therefore wanted to step down as India’s skipper so that he could put all his focus on batting. Sachin agreed to captain the national side in the two-Test series against South Africa at home, which would be his last match as a captain.

“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,” Borde told SportsKeeda. “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.”

Sachin Tendulkar was appointed India’s 26th captain in 1996, but regardless of an optimistic start, Sachin couldn’t continue the same momentum. Sachin led India in 25 Tests, out of which they won only four and lost nine. In limited over cricket, it was even worse with India winning only 23 out of 73 matches Sachin led.

After India was whitewashed by South Africa 0-2 at home, with the ODIs coming, Sachin had had enough and the management appointed Sourav Ganguly as the captain.

“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,” Borde added. “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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