Sachin wanted to focus on batting so went with Sourav, says Borde

New Delhi, June 22 (IANS) It is no secret that Sachin Tendulkar’s reluctance to continue as skipper led to Sourav Ganguly being made captain of the Indian team. And former chief selector Chandu Borde has now revealed the chain of events, saying that even though he tried to convince Tendulkar to continue, the legend wanted to focus on his batting.

“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.

“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.”

Earlier, former India skipper Kris Srikkanth said that Ganguly was a natural and that showed in the way he led the side.

“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,” he said.

Ganguly himself also spoke about how helping the team away from home was his biggest achievement as a leader. “My biggest legacy is that we left a unit that believed it could win away,” said Ganguly in an online video lecture for Unacademy. “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.”

–IANS

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