My previous post on this subject produced comments which are the distilled essence of the arguments I’ve been hearing for years as I’ve posted what I found about the full record on various fora. Broadly, the responses fall in two categories. A first set of people say I’m motivated by some special hatred for Ganguly. A second set of people say that the record isn’t everything and that there are intangibles which I refuse to consider. In this essay, I’ll respond to both criticisms and also present some of the record which I didn’t include in the previous post.
Labor Theory of cricket seems interesting on paper. But, the game is not played on paper. Sometimes a player finds a team environment and a captain more comfortable which helps them to have a clear mind. Without a clear mind, performances are bound to dip. Just remember the World Cup of 2007. It was a team full of in-form players. But, we failed miserably. Because the team environment was not healthy and it had an effect on the minds of the players. Also, the tactical acumen sometimes make a difference. Like giving an extra over to a bowler and having fielders placed proactively. The arguments that you have put forward tells one that a captain's tactical acumen in a cricket team is superfluous and is meant only for tossing the coin.
Lets say you're right about the team environment thing. Why evaluate a team environment based on one or two games? Doesn't the fact that the win rate was superior under Dravid, Azharuddin, Kohli and Dhoni compared Ganguly show, according to your own way to looking at things, that the team environment under Ganguly must have been worse?
FWIW, I don't buy this "team environment" stuff. Its significance is overblown.
When you look at win rates, even against non-minnows, you are sometimes disregarding the important tournaments and matches. India under Ganguly reached the final of every ICC event, barring the 2004 Champions Trophy. India won an ODI series in Pakistan. When you look at Azharuddin's performance in ICC Events, he reached the semi-final in only two of them (1996 World Cup and 1998 Knockout) out of 5 total events. When you look at Dravid's record, he failed to get out of even group stages in the two ICC Events he captained. Ganguly as captain might have had poor record in other ODIs than Dravid and Azharuddin, but he led his team with success when it mattered the most (ICC Events). So, without a stable team-environment, you cannot get an ICC Event winning team, which has been corroborated by Dravid's and Azharuddin's stats.
But does that take away the fact that India performed really well (of course apart from the finals) in ICC Events under Ganguly? His performance during 2000 and 2002 Champions Trophy (India reached the finals both times) was outstanding. He scored 3 hundreds (all against non-minnows-South Africa, New Zealand and England)
It isn't trying to take anything away from anybody. All he's doing is considering all competitive games equally. The question at stake is not whether Ganguly was good or bad (this would be silly), its whether he merits the unique status he seems to have as a leader. And the evidence suggests that there's nothing to suggest that he does.
For every time you say "but do you remember this particular game", an identical point can be made on behalf of other captains more often (as Michael shows).
That's my whole point. All competitive games can't be viewed equally. An anodyne ODI against Sri Lanka in India is not the same as a World Cup Quarter Final.
Well put. I agree with your basic premise of demystifying and cutting through the leadership cult that SG seems to have achieved. Vague and ridiculous propositions that I bought into those times like SG instilled "fight" in the team , "fought" for "his boys” have got to do more with non-cricketing reasons. As I played the game as a club cricketer I understood it is more about skill and decision making than anything else.
Regarding the table presented - captain's batting average vs rest of team's batting average in tests- I feel that average as a metric for rest of the team is a bit tricky due to the variations it is sensitive to- is it high due to other better batsmen or low due to poor tail enders? Also SG batted at no 5 which may have lowered his average. Perhaps this needs deeper analysis. He should be also be compared against other no 5's across the world. How about the ranked differential of the captain's average vs that of the rest of the specialist batters in the team to see if he was at the bottom. Also to compare the batting average differential of those guys when they were not captaining. SG averages 45 when not a captain which is pretty good. His last 23 tests as a non-captain he averaged 47.
The Indian captaincy or at least his handling of it did not allow him to evolve into a 50+ averaging test batsman during his prime. I actually sympathize with him since captaincy may have been too big a big burden to carry.
For the test cricket average list, can we filter the list by no 6 test batsman? Ganguly played in a team at no 6 with two of the most decorated run getters of all time - Dravid and Sachin. At many batting friendly matches Ganguly would come to bat only to all few runs quickly before innings declarations after Sachin/Dravid have piled up runs. He wasn’t a great test batsman, but certainly not as bad as your stats portray him, there are nuances between the stats not easy to decipher.
In the ODIs, Ganguly was one of the greatest till he reached 9000 ODI runs, his form dipped after that. Took awful amount of innings to reach 10000. Sachin was out of the team for a long time. Sehwag would go out and play his short and fast innings irrespective of the game condition. Dravid was so poor and he had to be made wicketkeeper to be included in the team. Ganguly didn’t do well under pressure with falling fitness and the pressure from board’s internal politics. I mean which country has every presented a pitch which would favour the opposition instead of the home team? Instead of all this, he should have focused on his batting, his numbers would have ended better. Opening the batting always, take advantage of the field restrictions, and by the time spinners were called, he would have been set and a few sixes would have taken his score to 45+. Instead of that he focused of the team, backed a few players who would become champions in future, and kept on playing on big occasions (champions trophy or World Cup, somebody had to score those 100s against minnows). And thus players and people rate him a a great captain.
I think the way you are judging the "promote sewag to open" decision has a flaw. We are looking at overall averages of each pairs and average of each as an opener. In my view to understand the the decision we need to see the 20/10 matches before ganguly dropped himself as an opener and Sewag's first 20/10 matches as an opener. If we see that ganguly was poor in those 20 matches he played before stepping down as an opener and sewag played well in the first set of matches then the decision can't be credited to ganguly. Similarly if the case is reverse that ganguly was actually playing well before he stepped down, then you would have to give him the credit. Can we please have those calculations.
Sehwag first opened for India on July 26, 2001. That was in a game where Tendulkar wasn't playing. In Sehwag's first 7 games as ODI opener, either Ganguly or Tendulkar were absent. In those 7 games, Sehwag made 33(54), 27(41), 0(1), 100(70), 4(4), 55(43) and 51(58). The first game in which a decision about which two out of three should open was the ODI against England in Kanpur on January 28, 2002.
In the preceding 2 years (from January 1, 2000 to January 27) against top 8 opposition (top 8: AUS, ENG, WI, NZ, SA, SL, PAK, IND), Tendulkar made 1768 runs at 49/85, Ganguly made 1608 runs at 40/78 and Sehwag made 215 runs at 36/94.
It was obvious that Sehwag offered an upgrade against the new ball over Ganguly. Sehwag had burst on the scene as a once in a generation talent. He was scoring in first class cricket at a rate not seen since Tendulkar. There was little doubt that Sehwag was going to play for India.
Besides, the question is hardly about whether or not Ganguly should get "credit". The question is whether the decision to promote Sehwag was some kind of novel, radical decision. It was hardly that given Sehwag's obvious run scoring speed which gave India a weapon to compete against Jayasuriya and Gilchrist. Azharuddin promoted Tendulkar, and Tendulkar promoted Ganguly. It was hardly radical in 2002 to promote a fast scoring player to score against a new ball. So the question, as with all other questions, is, why is this decision, which was hardly radical, evidence of something unique about Ganguly which Azharuddin or Tendulkar didn't have when they did Ganguly's job?
Loved reading the article . Makes lot of sense factually and logically. However you don t buy the "team environment" stuff and find its significance overblown which is obviously your view based on factors you completely believe in.
But having being actually a part of such team environments i can definitely say its a huge factor in most players final performance. Other than few players who can perform at an absurdly superior level irrespective of the surroundings around them , most players play at higher and lower level completely depend on the support or lack of support around them. This sport along with nearly all sports is so mentally challenging and that s what separates Men s from the boys.
I do hope one day any of the actual elite cricketers give an honest { if possible } view how they feel of intangibles like " team environment " " support of the captain/coach/support staff " "captain/coach" inspiring a team to perform at an high level consistently matter in the final performance of players.
Again i am not writing in support of Ganguly s captaincy or anyone else s for that matter , its just that i personally been and seen how about the intangibles affect for good and bad in the final output of players. And for me mental skills/support staff/intangibles around a player is as much important as his cricketing skills.
Its not that I don't buy the "team environment" stuff. Of course there is a mood to every collective. Its that there's no evidence that there was anything unique about such an environment under Ganguly. Team environments are usually excellent when a team is winning, they're horrible when a team is losing. Success shapes the environment.
Yup I do agree when there is lot of success the team environment is generally excellent and when everything goes kaput it’s generally the opposite .
But at times success and failure s also do depend on what sort of team environment is already there . At most times when a new player comes in his performance levels depend not only on his cricketing skills but all on how comfortable he is with the Captain/ coach / support staff / team .
I do agree with the fact that we can’t say with certainty or there is no hard evidence to suggest team India under Ganguly was better served of in this purpose ( intangibles ) than other Indian captains .
That can only be known by statistical facts which you have shown or by some actual stories or tales ( honest ) of Indian cricketers on how they feel their captain affected the way the team and they themselves performed in a good or a bad way .
More such statistical analysis on say an Imran khan might be a good read for he is supposed to be the most inspirational captains ever .
Success in cricket depend on batting and bowling. Teams with better batsmen and better bowlers wins (especially the latter). India were a losing team under Ganguly.
Also, if we can't say with certainty, we should assume that a thing is not there. Absent evidence, the only reason to say something is if one wants it to be true. That kind of motivated reasoning is terrible in any kind of observational work.
People say all kinds of things about captaincy which are not true. Given the absence of evidence, personality its time we turned out attention to the people who buy into these imaginary things and wonder why they are so drawn to cults of personality. For instance, it might be worth asking why the cricket commentariat and its biggest audience (mostly white-collar middle-class and male) is so drawn to this "leadership" stuff? It seems to be that a good reason for this might be the managerial fantasies of this class of people. But that is an analysis for another day.
We can keep having long discussions about this . But my personal experience tells me success in cricket( or in any sport) doesn’t depend on only batting and bowling ( it’s always a balance between top skills and top mental stuff / other intangibles for most ). I am sure lot more successful top level cricketers can attest to that .
Maybe the kind of public is drawn to this “leadership “ stuff is drawn to it because it’s kind of true . All this stuff are intangibles for a reason . It’s difficult to statistically prove them but people who experience it will always believe in it .
As I said before you have strong reasons to believe in what you do and people like you mentioned ( kind of public who are drawn to this leadership / personality idea ) may have strong reasons to believe what they do . For me it’s personal experience .
There's no amount of mental whatever which can compensate for not being able to bat or bowl at the extremely high level required to be a Test player. The difference between the batsman who average 50 and the batsman who averages 35 is not some management pep-talk. Its the speed of the eye and the mastery of technique (whether orthodox or otherwise) which ensures that the batsman is always balanced when meeting the ball.
Further, there's no evidence to suggest that this leadership works other than the fact that cricketers who know the audience they are speaking to (and the audience which can afford tickets to cricket matches and has the time to watch cricket matches on TV) like it.
On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence to show that this leadership stuff is not true. For one thing, no team considers captaincy a skill. If they did, players would be selected to squads for "leadership". But they never are. All teams all over the world pick the best available batsmen and bowlers they can find, and then pick a captain out of these.
I'm not interested one way or the other what your opinion (or my opinion) in this is. I'm interested in what the record says, and what it does, because that is where the reality is.
Well it’s not about my opinion or your opinion or anyone else s opinion .
It’s about the fact that certain things in top level sports can’t be measured statistically to prove its existence or lack of it . Obviously any kind of mental pep talk or any other intangible won’t make an ordinary batsman or a bowler a great one . But such intangibles matter when there are say players of the same quality or teams of the same quality and the difference between why one outperforms the other despite having same skills is because of the intangibles .
Coming to your Captaincy comment of no team considering it a skill . Again it’s obvious no one is picked for captaincy alone , like an average cricketer will rarely be the captain. But this doesn’t discount the fact that there are better captains and worse Captains . The fact that few captains will always make the best out of their teams than few others . The fact that players on the team may respond favorably to a certain player as a Captain than certain other . And even if this is not proved statistically it’s always present . I have personally experienced about how a certain captain or coach for that matter made a difference to a certain player/players who had huge skill but just couldn’t perform to his best . I am sure the ex cricketers who commentate will have more such personal experiences regarding their views on leadership skills .
Finally I see where you come from , you believe in things which can be proved statistically and on paper which obviously is the way to go about things most of the time , but as I said intangibles are intangibles for a reason and they can’t be statistically proved .
. You will continue to believe what you believe in and I will with what I have experienced and same with others I guess .
About the intangibles, Labour theory and team environment: the 2007 world cup team (although, admittedly it had Ganguly in it but not as captain) was probably far better than the 2003 team on paper (which is basically labour theory as I understand). However, the 2003 team performed far better. I would love to hear your opinion on that.
In my opinion performances in high stake games should get more weight in your analysis for obvious reasons (as they are remembered more and gets more global attention, so the mental aspect is very high). For example, the Champions trophy matches, games against Pakistan (which are definitely high stake for India), World cup matches, away tests etc should have more weight. One cannot compare a win in a dead rubber in a 5 match series with Sri Lanka on home turf with the same weight as compared to a win against Sri Lanka in a world cup super 6 match.
In any case, your analysis holds water no doubt about it. But I cannot agree completely with the Labour theory, and counting all matches with equal weight.
India won 1 final in 14 under Ganguly and lost 10. That does not speak too well of "high stakes" games, even if one were to grant the premise.
The telling thing about Ganguly's tenure is that people seem to remember it exclusively in terms of eight to ten games (out of roughly 200 in which Ganguly captained IND). In contrast, people seem to recall the Azharuddin era not in terms of 8-10 specific games, but in terms of the overall record. This tells you (at least it tells me) a great deal about what "high stakes" really means. Why should this be so? After all, 1998 was one of India's most successful years of all time in ODI cricket. That year India won a number of tournaments, hammered a truly outstanding Pakistan side (significantly better than the 2003/04 edition) several times, destroyed Shane Warne in India at a time when it was not at all obvious that anybody could.
Finally, individual matches can be flukes. Quality only emerges reliably over a large number of games.
Well, the loss in the finals is a minus point for Ganguly, I admit. In fact, there was significant criticism on this particular topic in those times, so it's not that nobody noticed it and brushed it off. In fact he himself admitted it:
All I am saying is that you should carefully lay out a weight system in your analysis for the matches based on importance. As you say quality only emerges over time, but to capture it, the analysis should be more precise. Just brutally counting wins-losses is not a good idea to capture a qualitative thing like leadership (if it at all can be done).
Now to layout random facts as you did in your reply:
The fact that India went into so many finals of important tournaments should have higher weight than winning an ODI in Indian pitches. If India defeated Australia in India in '98, they defeated them in a test in '03 in Australia (which is significantly higher feat, and also it was not clear if anybody could). They defeated them in India in '01 which is also significantly higher than beating the '98 Australia team. If they defeated Pakistan in a few matches in 98, they lost horribly many many times in Sharjah and India (test and ODI). In '05 they defeated Pakistan in Pakistan.
Lets assume that you're right and that some competitive matches are more important than other competitive matches. Then, lets assume that winning those more important matches is harder than winning the less important matches.
If this were true, then given the inescapable overall record (which is (a) a losing record, and (b) worse than the record under Azharuddin, Kapil, Dravid, Dhoni or Kohli), it would mean that under Ganguly India bizarrely found it harder to win easier games than it did to win harder games. This flies in the face of the basic logic of sport. But, lets say its true. If that's the case, it raises troubling questions as to whether Ganguly was all there in these "less important" games.
By contradiction, the simpler conclusion is that the original assumption that the games which were won were "more important" is a bad assumption. The idea of the "more important" game is just a post hoc rationalization by partisan fans, not a cricketing fact.
Finally, I see no reason why looking at the landscape of Indian cricket to see Ganguly's team's place in it is a worse approach than the one you suggest which, it seems to me, is to survey the landscape to look for anything which can be built up to make Ganguly look good and ignore anything which makes him look back. This, I'm afraid, is no way to look at the game. The only way to do it is to look equally across the landscape with as few assumptions as possible.
I am not trying to set up a model to manipulate the data to get a result I want, I am simply curious as to where Ganguly stands with this modified weighted model to measure success (compared to others).
I am not sure I agree that the idea of some games being more important or less important is post hoc determined by fans. Nor am I saying “put more weight on games which Ganguly won”.
Some tournaments are given higher prestige and importance because of multitude of reasons, it is just how any sport is. Fifa World Cup has more prestige than Euro Cup or Copa America, Olympics has more prestige than Asian games and so on. History remembers Maradona for his miraculous efforts with Napoli and his “goal of the century”. Now, I am sure that you can introduce some dry statistics and make a case for some other player who is less famous as being far better than Maradona, but I am not confident how accurately that will represent reality.
In any case, I am not sure just merely looking at the data will enable one to draw comparison over complex layers of playing conditions over different eras. I don’t think that this kind of data is large enough so that a law of large number effect will erase these errors for this particular comparison you are trying to draw. Perhaps the weighted model will somehow get hold of some of the so called “intangibles” which others are pointing out.
Now, what is a good way to introduce this weight in cricket is a different question and is a subject of another discussion.
"The Labour Theory Of Cricket presumes, rather quaintly, the cricket is about cricketing things. That it is not merely a stage for the latest fad in management-speak or psycho-babble. Under this theory, catches don’t win matches, but the frequency with which bowlers create chances does. This Theory requires that cricket be watched on its own terms, and not on terms governed by some pre-existing anxiety (Nationalism, Manhood, Managerial Fantasies or whatever else)."
--- Well done. Now you are getting somewhere. At-least we now have a theoretical framework to gauge your thesis.
---- Your arguments are symptomatic of the larger debate surrounding quantitative and qualitative studies. Whatever isn't quantifiable, falsifiable is not "science" and hence should not be valued. Debates surrounding rationalism vs empiricism etc. Please read Kant's opposition to rationalism. You will find the fundamental arguments that does go against you regarding this piece.
--- Its alright, that's your opinion. But for me, the biggest indicator of Ganguly's leadership qualities isn't causal data, but what his peers-- both who played with him and against say about him. They wouldn't hold him in such high regard if they thought otherwise.
--- A real scholar would try to create triangulated approaches to measure what his leadership actually meant.
---Funny thing is, you are trying to adopt rationalist principles in a topic which does deal in ambiguity (i.e. a social construct like leadership). In a way, you have fallen prey to the very ambiguity you were trying to escape. Sort of a paradox.
There's no evidence that his peers saying anything particularly unique about him. I've yet to see a player speak ill of another player (especially one who is senior to him in terms of caps won or is in the team management) in a press interview. Nor is there any evidence in the record.
The question (I'm responding to your comment on the first part of this here as well) is why it is correct to consider Ganguly to be a uniquely good leader. Given the record (his own, and the team's) which is catalogued in both these essays there isn't any reason to be.
Anyways, I hope you read some of the other comments too because I've replied to some of those over the past couple of months and they cover much of what you say.
You should have started off by defining the construct "unique". If you uniqueness is something you are going by, then setting up the context in which the captaincy given to him, how Indian cricket was viewed globally at that point in time or the "perception" should also be considered. Again, one of the many problems of quantitative studies. Ideally, you should have triangulated data with discourse analysis to form a context. Your entire premise is based on this construct.
Look at Sangakkara, attributing "gamesmanship" as part of his captaincy. Steve Waugh attributing "changing the perception of Indian cricket". These are qualitative statements and their linkage with performance is unknown in a cricket setting.
You have completely ignored the legacy aspect of a leader by giving some unfounded logic about "deferred tangibles" because it cannot be measured. But values do endure in every institution/team environment.
Your comments below suggest you think these things are overblown. But these do count for something. For instance, in educational psychology, social constructs like grit, growth mindset etc. have been seen to be accurate predictors of academic performance. You can measure these. Have you gone through psychological studies in team settings that evaluate the role of a leader?
"if we can't say with certainty, we should assume that a thing is not there."---This is a logical fallacy. Let me ask you, doing you think sledging has a role to play in altering performances in cricket? Based on your logic, think about it. There is no data to prove either or.
You have made so many value statements without evidence in your comments. If you wanna do scholarly work, please be consistent. For example, " Team environments are usually excellent when a team is winning, they're horrible when a team is losing. Success shapes the environment."---where is the citation to this? Is this your opinion or fact?
If your question was "Does the Indian team's performance during Ganguly's tenure warrant him to be a uniquely good leader?" and thereafter if you would have gone on defining the scope and construct of a "uniquely good leader", Your points would have been valid.
Actually, the very theory you are basing this on is unproven. Your very premise of intangibles don't matter is incorrect. Let me give you an example, Liverpool buys players based on data analytics, however the final call is decided based on in-depth interviews and psychological assessment of the player. Why do you think they do it if every metric could have been captured by data?
Triangulation is the best way to achieve what you are trying to do. Anyway, I think you should start your article with the theoretical framework. It shall give the reader the scope of what you think a "uniquely good leader" is. Thereafter they can decide whether the data holds true.
The data set only captures the performance. Not the spillovers from instilling non cognitive traits within a team setting. Best analogy I can think of is in public policy when policies are implemented and their outcomes take time to be seen. Your complete rejection of anything that cannot be measured is limiting your understanding. This kind of data elitism is not new. Interested to know about what you think about the sledging analogy I gave.
It seems to me that the kind of arguments you are putting are looking for proof of the idea that Ganguly was a uniquely capable leader, rather than trying to find out what kind of leader he was.
Lets say that you're right. That there were some deferred tangibles which came to fruition later on when India were under Dravid or Dhoni. By the same token, it is exactly equally likely that the good results under Ganguly in 2001 and especially 2002 and 2003, were a consequence of deferred tangibles from the Tendulkar/Azharuddin eras coming to fruition. So even if one were to grant your speculation, it still does not show that Ganguly was a uniquely gifted leader.
Cricket is a game. It is a closed system whose boundaries are clearly demarcated. Its measures of merit are unambiguous and fundamental - it is a competition in which teams can win, lose and draw.
In Ganguly's case, as I've pointed out at length, there's no evidence that any of the claims on his behalf hold when scrutinized against the record.
True. But Tendulkar's/Azharuddin's deferred tangibles didn't win India a World Cup. Yuvraj et al. did. In a game setting, there's a bedding in period for youth till they become established cricketers. That might impact negatively your own record but has positive impact in the long run. That team wasn't the marauding Australian side that destroyed everything. It was more about impact of those singular wins. Drawing a series in Australia, Eden Gardens 2001, 2003 WC etc. They competed with the greatest on occasions. My personal opinion on Ganguly is his record as a captain is surely overhyped, but it is true that he created a team that endured. Ofcourse that is a claim which I am justifying based on commentaries by cricketers who to a large extent attribute Ganguly for moulding their cricketing careers.
You can try a similar exercise on Alan Border, Imran Khan and Arjuna Ranatunga. They are all considered as uniquely great leaders. See how their records stack up comparatively.
I like how you ignored the question on sledging though.
I must have missed the question on sledging. Can you please put it again?
It seems to me to be rather self-serving to decide that a team with a losing record (or its captain) should be judged by based on a handful out of the minority of results they achieved which were favorable by casting that handful as "the greatest of occasions". If you're going to argue that those game were axiomatically more important, then we're no longer discussing a competitive sport.
"if we can't say with certainty, we should assume that a thing is not there."---This is a logical fallacy. Let me ask you, doing you think sledging has a role to play in altering performances in cricket? Based on your logic, think about it. There is no data to prove either or.
"It seems to me to be rather self-serving to decide that a team with a losing record (or its captain) should be judged by based on a handful out of the minority of results they achieved which were favorable by casting that handful as "the greatest of occasions".
--- You misread what I said. I didn't say "the greatest of occasions". They competed "with the greatest on occasions." By greatest, I mean that Aussie side.
I agree with you. It wasn't a great side by any stretch of the imagination.I am focusing on the legacy aspect of Ganguly being a unique leader by looking at the "deferred tangibles".
Ganguly is also said to have instilled "fighting spirit". One exercise that will help us distill the fighting spirit of Ganguly's captaincy aspect is looking at the margin of defeat compared to other captains. It is an important exercise.
Its not a logical fallacy because its not a logical claim. The claim is not "Y follows from X". It is "If X, we should do Y". This is a nominal, normative claim specific to this particular X in this particular discussion. There is no reason to read it otherwise, especially not as a logical proposition.
There's no point in thinking that a thing is an independent, separate parameter in cricket beyond runs, balls and wickets, because the only effects which are relevant are contained in the record of runs balls and wickets. Runs, balls and wickets are a consequence of skills - overwhelmingly, batting and bowling. Wicket keeping, and to a lesser extent fielding are comparatively less consequential (when compared to batting and bowling that is).
So, the proposition is, if one wants to describe cricket properly, one has to first provide a proper description of batting and bowling. This is hard to do. Its very tempting to invent new factors and assume that these are of outsized significance. We invent lots of such factors - captaincy, leadership, strategy, selection, individual tactical decisions, "psychology" - etc. Each of these belong in air-quotes because they're half-assed for the most part, and not independent. Its trivially easy to make non-falsifiable claims about this guff.
It is very hard to observe batting and even harder to observe bowling. The causes of cricket results accumulate overwhelmingly due to decisions and actions by the bowler, and then by the batter on ball after ball after ball. The greatest players make good decisions and execute actions well ball after ball after ball. That is what decides cricket matches. Not some armchair guff about one decision on one ball which we happen to notice. This excellence is exhausting to observe. And so we don't even try to observe it.
Hmm. I understand where you come from. A very rationalist way of thinking. Your theory focuses on things that you can claim with measured precision. I get that.
What it goes against is one's experiential learning of cricket having played it at certain level. But I think we can reach a stage where the mental aspect can be measured as well. For instance, imagine a smart watch measuring your heart rate, capturing your biological data after something was said to a batsmen and the subsequent shot he played. It can help us measure the mental aspect of the game as well.
The dichotomy between experiential vis-a-vis data based claims shall always till we can measure all the variables that affect performance including the mental aspect.
This has been a fruitful discussion. Apologies for my insolence.
On a side note, does it bother you that the cricketers we are theorising upon actually don't care about all this? The existential angst of it all.
There's no reason to think that sledging affects performances. Cricket matches are decided by the quality of batting or bowling. Players whose batting or bowling is affected more by things like sledging are not as good at batting or bowling as players whose batting or bowling is affected less by things like sledging. That is to say, the better players are better players because they are better practiced, and their expertise and muscle memory is better trained, and more resistant to a larger variety of circumstances than lesser players.
The point of considering results is that because cricket is a game, the totality of relevant consequences is contained in the competitive record. There is nothing outside it.
So, as far as sledging, or any other legal thing is concerned, it has not effect outside of what is evident in the record which is made up of runs, balls and dismissals.
Ganguly averaged 23 as batsman at home against non minnows. I don't know how people accept those returns from Ganguly as acceptable returns. Rest of his career, he averaged 51 at home. 2000-05 was a really batting friendly time as well. His overseas numbers were fine as captain but maybe, just maybe, if he concentrated on his batting more, he would have ended with even better numbers overall.
Batsman with average of 41, strike-rate of 72 in ODIs (311) and 42 in Tests (113) should be enough to give him place in Indian team as better than good batsman (if not great).
There was big loss of his form in year 2004 and 2005 warranting Greg Chappel (new coach) to question his attitude, fittness and methods as a batsman.
Only thing that went against Saurav Gangully, i feel is, Not accepting this loss of form or working on improving it in these 2 years... 2004/2005, eventually got him dropped.
And he came back with bang in 2007-2008 (235 vs Pak in Bangalore) and retired after constant scrutiny again.
But this analysis that due to his captaincy he was retained in the side seems to be true for only 2 years 2004 and 2005
Labor Theory of cricket seems interesting on paper. But, the game is not played on paper. Sometimes a player finds a team environment and a captain more comfortable which helps them to have a clear mind. Without a clear mind, performances are bound to dip. Just remember the World Cup of 2007. It was a team full of in-form players. But, we failed miserably. Because the team environment was not healthy and it had an effect on the minds of the players. Also, the tactical acumen sometimes make a difference. Like giving an extra over to a bowler and having fielders placed proactively. The arguments that you have put forward tells one that a captain's tactical acumen in a cricket team is superfluous and is meant only for tossing the coin.
Lets say you're right about the team environment thing. Why evaluate a team environment based on one or two games? Doesn't the fact that the win rate was superior under Dravid, Azharuddin, Kohli and Dhoni compared Ganguly show, according to your own way to looking at things, that the team environment under Ganguly must have been worse?
FWIW, I don't buy this "team environment" stuff. Its significance is overblown.
When you look at win rates, even against non-minnows, you are sometimes disregarding the important tournaments and matches. India under Ganguly reached the final of every ICC event, barring the 2004 Champions Trophy. India won an ODI series in Pakistan. When you look at Azharuddin's performance in ICC Events, he reached the semi-final in only two of them (1996 World Cup and 1998 Knockout) out of 5 total events. When you look at Dravid's record, he failed to get out of even group stages in the two ICC Events he captained. Ganguly as captain might have had poor record in other ODIs than Dravid and Azharuddin, but he led his team with success when it mattered the most (ICC Events). So, without a stable team-environment, you cannot get an ICC Event winning team, which has been corroborated by Dravid's and Azharuddin's stats.
Against non-minnows in tournaments with more than 4 teams India won 9 matches out of 18 under Ganguly.
They've won 7/13 under Kohli, 8/13 under Kapil Dev and 15/22 under Dhoni.
Amongst captains to have captained 10 matches, only Azharuddin has a worse record.
But does that take away the fact that India performed really well (of course apart from the finals) in ICC Events under Ganguly? His performance during 2000 and 2002 Champions Trophy (India reached the finals both times) was outstanding. He scored 3 hundreds (all against non-minnows-South Africa, New Zealand and England)
It isn't trying to take anything away from anybody. All he's doing is considering all competitive games equally. The question at stake is not whether Ganguly was good or bad (this would be silly), its whether he merits the unique status he seems to have as a leader. And the evidence suggests that there's nothing to suggest that he does.
For every time you say "but do you remember this particular game", an identical point can be made on behalf of other captains more often (as Michael shows).
That's my whole point. All competitive games can't be viewed equally. An anodyne ODI against Sri Lanka in India is not the same as a World Cup Quarter Final.
Well put. I agree with your basic premise of demystifying and cutting through the leadership cult that SG seems to have achieved. Vague and ridiculous propositions that I bought into those times like SG instilled "fight" in the team , "fought" for "his boys” have got to do more with non-cricketing reasons. As I played the game as a club cricketer I understood it is more about skill and decision making than anything else.
Regarding the table presented - captain's batting average vs rest of team's batting average in tests- I feel that average as a metric for rest of the team is a bit tricky due to the variations it is sensitive to- is it high due to other better batsmen or low due to poor tail enders? Also SG batted at no 5 which may have lowered his average. Perhaps this needs deeper analysis. He should be also be compared against other no 5's across the world. How about the ranked differential of the captain's average vs that of the rest of the specialist batters in the team to see if he was at the bottom. Also to compare the batting average differential of those guys when they were not captaining. SG averages 45 when not a captain which is pretty good. His last 23 tests as a non-captain he averaged 47.
The Indian captaincy or at least his handling of it did not allow him to evolve into a 50+ averaging test batsman during his prime. I actually sympathize with him since captaincy may have been too big a big burden to carry.
For the test cricket average list, can we filter the list by no 6 test batsman? Ganguly played in a team at no 6 with two of the most decorated run getters of all time - Dravid and Sachin. At many batting friendly matches Ganguly would come to bat only to all few runs quickly before innings declarations after Sachin/Dravid have piled up runs. He wasn’t a great test batsman, but certainly not as bad as your stats portray him, there are nuances between the stats not easy to decipher.
In the ODIs, Ganguly was one of the greatest till he reached 9000 ODI runs, his form dipped after that. Took awful amount of innings to reach 10000. Sachin was out of the team for a long time. Sehwag would go out and play his short and fast innings irrespective of the game condition. Dravid was so poor and he had to be made wicketkeeper to be included in the team. Ganguly didn’t do well under pressure with falling fitness and the pressure from board’s internal politics. I mean which country has every presented a pitch which would favour the opposition instead of the home team? Instead of all this, he should have focused on his batting, his numbers would have ended better. Opening the batting always, take advantage of the field restrictions, and by the time spinners were called, he would have been set and a few sixes would have taken his score to 45+. Instead of that he focused of the team, backed a few players who would become champions in future, and kept on playing on big occasions (champions trophy or World Cup, somebody had to score those 100s against minnows). And thus players and people rate him a a great captain.
I think the way you are judging the "promote sewag to open" decision has a flaw. We are looking at overall averages of each pairs and average of each as an opener. In my view to understand the the decision we need to see the 20/10 matches before ganguly dropped himself as an opener and Sewag's first 20/10 matches as an opener. If we see that ganguly was poor in those 20 matches he played before stepping down as an opener and sewag played well in the first set of matches then the decision can't be credited to ganguly. Similarly if the case is reverse that ganguly was actually playing well before he stepped down, then you would have to give him the credit. Can we please have those calculations.
Sehwag first opened for India on July 26, 2001. That was in a game where Tendulkar wasn't playing. In Sehwag's first 7 games as ODI opener, either Ganguly or Tendulkar were absent. In those 7 games, Sehwag made 33(54), 27(41), 0(1), 100(70), 4(4), 55(43) and 51(58). The first game in which a decision about which two out of three should open was the ODI against England in Kanpur on January 28, 2002.
In the preceding 2 years (from January 1, 2000 to January 27) against top 8 opposition (top 8: AUS, ENG, WI, NZ, SA, SL, PAK, IND), Tendulkar made 1768 runs at 49/85, Ganguly made 1608 runs at 40/78 and Sehwag made 215 runs at 36/94.
It was obvious that Sehwag offered an upgrade against the new ball over Ganguly. Sehwag had burst on the scene as a once in a generation talent. He was scoring in first class cricket at a rate not seen since Tendulkar. There was little doubt that Sehwag was going to play for India.
Besides, the question is hardly about whether or not Ganguly should get "credit". The question is whether the decision to promote Sehwag was some kind of novel, radical decision. It was hardly that given Sehwag's obvious run scoring speed which gave India a weapon to compete against Jayasuriya and Gilchrist. Azharuddin promoted Tendulkar, and Tendulkar promoted Ganguly. It was hardly radical in 2002 to promote a fast scoring player to score against a new ball. So the question, as with all other questions, is, why is this decision, which was hardly radical, evidence of something unique about Ganguly which Azharuddin or Tendulkar didn't have when they did Ganguly's job?
Loved reading the article . Makes lot of sense factually and logically. However you don t buy the "team environment" stuff and find its significance overblown which is obviously your view based on factors you completely believe in.
But having being actually a part of such team environments i can definitely say its a huge factor in most players final performance. Other than few players who can perform at an absurdly superior level irrespective of the surroundings around them , most players play at higher and lower level completely depend on the support or lack of support around them. This sport along with nearly all sports is so mentally challenging and that s what separates Men s from the boys.
I do hope one day any of the actual elite cricketers give an honest { if possible } view how they feel of intangibles like " team environment " " support of the captain/coach/support staff " "captain/coach" inspiring a team to perform at an high level consistently matter in the final performance of players.
Again i am not writing in support of Ganguly s captaincy or anyone else s for that matter , its just that i personally been and seen how about the intangibles affect for good and bad in the final output of players. And for me mental skills/support staff/intangibles around a player is as much important as his cricketing skills.
Its not that I don't buy the "team environment" stuff. Of course there is a mood to every collective. Its that there's no evidence that there was anything unique about such an environment under Ganguly. Team environments are usually excellent when a team is winning, they're horrible when a team is losing. Success shapes the environment.
Yup I do agree when there is lot of success the team environment is generally excellent and when everything goes kaput it’s generally the opposite .
But at times success and failure s also do depend on what sort of team environment is already there . At most times when a new player comes in his performance levels depend not only on his cricketing skills but all on how comfortable he is with the Captain/ coach / support staff / team .
I do agree with the fact that we can’t say with certainty or there is no hard evidence to suggest team India under Ganguly was better served of in this purpose ( intangibles ) than other Indian captains .
That can only be known by statistical facts which you have shown or by some actual stories or tales ( honest ) of Indian cricketers on how they feel their captain affected the way the team and they themselves performed in a good or a bad way .
More such statistical analysis on say an Imran khan might be a good read for he is supposed to be the most inspirational captains ever .
Success in cricket depend on batting and bowling. Teams with better batsmen and better bowlers wins (especially the latter). India were a losing team under Ganguly.
Also, if we can't say with certainty, we should assume that a thing is not there. Absent evidence, the only reason to say something is if one wants it to be true. That kind of motivated reasoning is terrible in any kind of observational work.
People say all kinds of things about captaincy which are not true. Given the absence of evidence, personality its time we turned out attention to the people who buy into these imaginary things and wonder why they are so drawn to cults of personality. For instance, it might be worth asking why the cricket commentariat and its biggest audience (mostly white-collar middle-class and male) is so drawn to this "leadership" stuff? It seems to be that a good reason for this might be the managerial fantasies of this class of people. But that is an analysis for another day.
We can keep having long discussions about this . But my personal experience tells me success in cricket( or in any sport) doesn’t depend on only batting and bowling ( it’s always a balance between top skills and top mental stuff / other intangibles for most ). I am sure lot more successful top level cricketers can attest to that .
Maybe the kind of public is drawn to this “leadership “ stuff is drawn to it because it’s kind of true . All this stuff are intangibles for a reason . It’s difficult to statistically prove them but people who experience it will always believe in it .
As I said before you have strong reasons to believe in what you do and people like you mentioned ( kind of public who are drawn to this leadership / personality idea ) may have strong reasons to believe what they do . For me it’s personal experience .
There's no amount of mental whatever which can compensate for not being able to bat or bowl at the extremely high level required to be a Test player. The difference between the batsman who average 50 and the batsman who averages 35 is not some management pep-talk. Its the speed of the eye and the mastery of technique (whether orthodox or otherwise) which ensures that the batsman is always balanced when meeting the ball.
Further, there's no evidence to suggest that this leadership works other than the fact that cricketers who know the audience they are speaking to (and the audience which can afford tickets to cricket matches and has the time to watch cricket matches on TV) like it.
On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence to show that this leadership stuff is not true. For one thing, no team considers captaincy a skill. If they did, players would be selected to squads for "leadership". But they never are. All teams all over the world pick the best available batsmen and bowlers they can find, and then pick a captain out of these.
I'm not interested one way or the other what your opinion (or my opinion) in this is. I'm interested in what the record says, and what it does, because that is where the reality is.
Well it’s not about my opinion or your opinion or anyone else s opinion .
It’s about the fact that certain things in top level sports can’t be measured statistically to prove its existence or lack of it . Obviously any kind of mental pep talk or any other intangible won’t make an ordinary batsman or a bowler a great one . But such intangibles matter when there are say players of the same quality or teams of the same quality and the difference between why one outperforms the other despite having same skills is because of the intangibles .
Coming to your Captaincy comment of no team considering it a skill . Again it’s obvious no one is picked for captaincy alone , like an average cricketer will rarely be the captain. But this doesn’t discount the fact that there are better captains and worse Captains . The fact that few captains will always make the best out of their teams than few others . The fact that players on the team may respond favorably to a certain player as a Captain than certain other . And even if this is not proved statistically it’s always present . I have personally experienced about how a certain captain or coach for that matter made a difference to a certain player/players who had huge skill but just couldn’t perform to his best . I am sure the ex cricketers who commentate will have more such personal experiences regarding their views on leadership skills .
Finally I see where you come from , you believe in things which can be proved statistically and on paper which obviously is the way to go about things most of the time , but as I said intangibles are intangibles for a reason and they can’t be statistically proved .
. You will continue to believe what you believe in and I will with what I have experienced and same with others I guess .
About the intangibles, Labour theory and team environment: the 2007 world cup team (although, admittedly it had Ganguly in it but not as captain) was probably far better than the 2003 team on paper (which is basically labour theory as I understand). However, the 2003 team performed far better. I would love to hear your opinion on that.
In my opinion performances in high stake games should get more weight in your analysis for obvious reasons (as they are remembered more and gets more global attention, so the mental aspect is very high). For example, the Champions trophy matches, games against Pakistan (which are definitely high stake for India), World cup matches, away tests etc should have more weight. One cannot compare a win in a dead rubber in a 5 match series with Sri Lanka on home turf with the same weight as compared to a win against Sri Lanka in a world cup super 6 match.
In any case, your analysis holds water no doubt about it. But I cannot agree completely with the Labour theory, and counting all matches with equal weight.
India won 1 final in 14 under Ganguly and lost 10. That does not speak too well of "high stakes" games, even if one were to grant the premise.
The telling thing about Ganguly's tenure is that people seem to remember it exclusively in terms of eight to ten games (out of roughly 200 in which Ganguly captained IND). In contrast, people seem to recall the Azharuddin era not in terms of 8-10 specific games, but in terms of the overall record. This tells you (at least it tells me) a great deal about what "high stakes" really means. Why should this be so? After all, 1998 was one of India's most successful years of all time in ODI cricket. That year India won a number of tournaments, hammered a truly outstanding Pakistan side (significantly better than the 2003/04 edition) several times, destroyed Shane Warne in India at a time when it was not at all obvious that anybody could.
Finally, individual matches can be flukes. Quality only emerges reliably over a large number of games.
Well, the loss in the finals is a minus point for Ganguly, I admit. In fact, there was significant criticism on this particular topic in those times, so it's not that nobody noticed it and brushed it off. In fact he himself admitted it:
https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/we-cannot-lose-so-many-finals-ganguly-134848
All I am saying is that you should carefully lay out a weight system in your analysis for the matches based on importance. As you say quality only emerges over time, but to capture it, the analysis should be more precise. Just brutally counting wins-losses is not a good idea to capture a qualitative thing like leadership (if it at all can be done).
Now to layout random facts as you did in your reply:
The fact that India went into so many finals of important tournaments should have higher weight than winning an ODI in Indian pitches. If India defeated Australia in India in '98, they defeated them in a test in '03 in Australia (which is significantly higher feat, and also it was not clear if anybody could). They defeated them in India in '01 which is also significantly higher than beating the '98 Australia team. If they defeated Pakistan in a few matches in 98, they lost horribly many many times in Sharjah and India (test and ODI). In '05 they defeated Pakistan in Pakistan.
Lets assume that you're right and that some competitive matches are more important than other competitive matches. Then, lets assume that winning those more important matches is harder than winning the less important matches.
If this were true, then given the inescapable overall record (which is (a) a losing record, and (b) worse than the record under Azharuddin, Kapil, Dravid, Dhoni or Kohli), it would mean that under Ganguly India bizarrely found it harder to win easier games than it did to win harder games. This flies in the face of the basic logic of sport. But, lets say its true. If that's the case, it raises troubling questions as to whether Ganguly was all there in these "less important" games.
By contradiction, the simpler conclusion is that the original assumption that the games which were won were "more important" is a bad assumption. The idea of the "more important" game is just a post hoc rationalization by partisan fans, not a cricketing fact.
Finally, I see no reason why looking at the landscape of Indian cricket to see Ganguly's team's place in it is a worse approach than the one you suggest which, it seems to me, is to survey the landscape to look for anything which can be built up to make Ganguly look good and ignore anything which makes him look back. This, I'm afraid, is no way to look at the game. The only way to do it is to look equally across the landscape with as few assumptions as possible.
I am not trying to set up a model to manipulate the data to get a result I want, I am simply curious as to where Ganguly stands with this modified weighted model to measure success (compared to others).
I am not sure I agree that the idea of some games being more important or less important is post hoc determined by fans. Nor am I saying “put more weight on games which Ganguly won”.
Some tournaments are given higher prestige and importance because of multitude of reasons, it is just how any sport is. Fifa World Cup has more prestige than Euro Cup or Copa America, Olympics has more prestige than Asian games and so on. History remembers Maradona for his miraculous efforts with Napoli and his “goal of the century”. Now, I am sure that you can introduce some dry statistics and make a case for some other player who is less famous as being far better than Maradona, but I am not confident how accurately that will represent reality.
In any case, I am not sure just merely looking at the data will enable one to draw comparison over complex layers of playing conditions over different eras. I don’t think that this kind of data is large enough so that a law of large number effect will erase these errors for this particular comparison you are trying to draw. Perhaps the weighted model will somehow get hold of some of the so called “intangibles” which others are pointing out.
Now, what is a good way to introduce this weight in cricket is a different question and is a subject of another discussion.
"The Labour Theory Of Cricket presumes, rather quaintly, the cricket is about cricketing things. That it is not merely a stage for the latest fad in management-speak or psycho-babble. Under this theory, catches don’t win matches, but the frequency with which bowlers create chances does. This Theory requires that cricket be watched on its own terms, and not on terms governed by some pre-existing anxiety (Nationalism, Manhood, Managerial Fantasies or whatever else)."
--- Well done. Now you are getting somewhere. At-least we now have a theoretical framework to gauge your thesis.
---- Your arguments are symptomatic of the larger debate surrounding quantitative and qualitative studies. Whatever isn't quantifiable, falsifiable is not "science" and hence should not be valued. Debates surrounding rationalism vs empiricism etc. Please read Kant's opposition to rationalism. You will find the fundamental arguments that does go against you regarding this piece.
--- Its alright, that's your opinion. But for me, the biggest indicator of Ganguly's leadership qualities isn't causal data, but what his peers-- both who played with him and against say about him. They wouldn't hold him in such high regard if they thought otherwise.
--- A real scholar would try to create triangulated approaches to measure what his leadership actually meant.
---Funny thing is, you are trying to adopt rationalist principles in a topic which does deal in ambiguity (i.e. a social construct like leadership). In a way, you have fallen prey to the very ambiguity you were trying to escape. Sort of a paradox.
There's no evidence that his peers saying anything particularly unique about him. I've yet to see a player speak ill of another player (especially one who is senior to him in terms of caps won or is in the team management) in a press interview. Nor is there any evidence in the record.
The question (I'm responding to your comment on the first part of this here as well) is why it is correct to consider Ganguly to be a uniquely good leader. Given the record (his own, and the team's) which is catalogued in both these essays there isn't any reason to be.
Anyways, I hope you read some of the other comments too because I've replied to some of those over the past couple of months and they cover much of what you say.
You should have started off by defining the construct "unique". If you uniqueness is something you are going by, then setting up the context in which the captaincy given to him, how Indian cricket was viewed globally at that point in time or the "perception" should also be considered. Again, one of the many problems of quantitative studies. Ideally, you should have triangulated data with discourse analysis to form a context. Your entire premise is based on this construct.
Check this out:
https://www.cricketcountry.com/articles/15-memorable-quotes-on-sourav-ganguly-by-cricket-legends-517270
Look at Sangakkara, attributing "gamesmanship" as part of his captaincy. Steve Waugh attributing "changing the perception of Indian cricket". These are qualitative statements and their linkage with performance is unknown in a cricket setting.
You have completely ignored the legacy aspect of a leader by giving some unfounded logic about "deferred tangibles" because it cannot be measured. But values do endure in every institution/team environment.
Your comments below suggest you think these things are overblown. But these do count for something. For instance, in educational psychology, social constructs like grit, growth mindset etc. have been seen to be accurate predictors of academic performance. You can measure these. Have you gone through psychological studies in team settings that evaluate the role of a leader?
"if we can't say with certainty, we should assume that a thing is not there."---This is a logical fallacy. Let me ask you, doing you think sledging has a role to play in altering performances in cricket? Based on your logic, think about it. There is no data to prove either or.
You have made so many value statements without evidence in your comments. If you wanna do scholarly work, please be consistent. For example, " Team environments are usually excellent when a team is winning, they're horrible when a team is losing. Success shapes the environment."---where is the citation to this? Is this your opinion or fact?
If your question was "Does the Indian team's performance during Ganguly's tenure warrant him to be a uniquely good leader?" and thereafter if you would have gone on defining the scope and construct of a "uniquely good leader", Your points would have been valid.
Actually, the very theory you are basing this on is unproven. Your very premise of intangibles don't matter is incorrect. Let me give you an example, Liverpool buys players based on data analytics, however the final call is decided based on in-depth interviews and psychological assessment of the player. Why do you think they do it if every metric could have been captured by data?
Triangulation is the best way to achieve what you are trying to do. Anyway, I think you should start your article with the theoretical framework. It shall give the reader the scope of what you think a "uniquely good leader" is. Thereafter they can decide whether the data holds true.
That's precisely the question. In cricket there is a record against which claims can be examined.
Press statements by players do not constitute a qualitative study. The claims have to be scrutinized against the record.
The data set only captures the performance. Not the spillovers from instilling non cognitive traits within a team setting. Best analogy I can think of is in public policy when policies are implemented and their outcomes take time to be seen. Your complete rejection of anything that cannot be measured is limiting your understanding. This kind of data elitism is not new. Interested to know about what you think about the sledging analogy I gave.
It seems to me that the kind of arguments you are putting are looking for proof of the idea that Ganguly was a uniquely capable leader, rather than trying to find out what kind of leader he was.
Lets say that you're right. That there were some deferred tangibles which came to fruition later on when India were under Dravid or Dhoni. By the same token, it is exactly equally likely that the good results under Ganguly in 2001 and especially 2002 and 2003, were a consequence of deferred tangibles from the Tendulkar/Azharuddin eras coming to fruition. So even if one were to grant your speculation, it still does not show that Ganguly was a uniquely gifted leader.
Cricket is a game. It is a closed system whose boundaries are clearly demarcated. Its measures of merit are unambiguous and fundamental - it is a competition in which teams can win, lose and draw.
In Ganguly's case, as I've pointed out at length, there's no evidence that any of the claims on his behalf hold when scrutinized against the record.
That's precisely the question. In cricket there is a record against which claims can be examined.
Press statements by players do not constitute a qualitative study. The claims have to be scrutinized against the record.
True. But Tendulkar's/Azharuddin's deferred tangibles didn't win India a World Cup. Yuvraj et al. did. In a game setting, there's a bedding in period for youth till they become established cricketers. That might impact negatively your own record but has positive impact in the long run. That team wasn't the marauding Australian side that destroyed everything. It was more about impact of those singular wins. Drawing a series in Australia, Eden Gardens 2001, 2003 WC etc. They competed with the greatest on occasions. My personal opinion on Ganguly is his record as a captain is surely overhyped, but it is true that he created a team that endured. Ofcourse that is a claim which I am justifying based on commentaries by cricketers who to a large extent attribute Ganguly for moulding their cricketing careers.
You can try a similar exercise on Alan Border, Imran Khan and Arjuna Ranatunga. They are all considered as uniquely great leaders. See how their records stack up comparatively.
I like how you ignored the question on sledging though.
I must have missed the question on sledging. Can you please put it again?
It seems to me to be rather self-serving to decide that a team with a losing record (or its captain) should be judged by based on a handful out of the minority of results they achieved which were favorable by casting that handful as "the greatest of occasions". If you're going to argue that those game were axiomatically more important, then we're no longer discussing a competitive sport.
"if we can't say with certainty, we should assume that a thing is not there."---This is a logical fallacy. Let me ask you, doing you think sledging has a role to play in altering performances in cricket? Based on your logic, think about it. There is no data to prove either or.
"It seems to me to be rather self-serving to decide that a team with a losing record (or its captain) should be judged by based on a handful out of the minority of results they achieved which were favorable by casting that handful as "the greatest of occasions".
--- You misread what I said. I didn't say "the greatest of occasions". They competed "with the greatest on occasions." By greatest, I mean that Aussie side.
I agree with you. It wasn't a great side by any stretch of the imagination.I am focusing on the legacy aspect of Ganguly being a unique leader by looking at the "deferred tangibles".
Ganguly is also said to have instilled "fighting spirit". One exercise that will help us distill the fighting spirit of Ganguly's captaincy aspect is looking at the margin of defeat compared to other captains. It is an important exercise.
Its not a logical fallacy because its not a logical claim. The claim is not "Y follows from X". It is "If X, we should do Y". This is a nominal, normative claim specific to this particular X in this particular discussion. There is no reason to read it otherwise, especially not as a logical proposition.
Just for understanding, this is a normative claim in your Labour theory?
There's no point in thinking that a thing is an independent, separate parameter in cricket beyond runs, balls and wickets, because the only effects which are relevant are contained in the record of runs balls and wickets. Runs, balls and wickets are a consequence of skills - overwhelmingly, batting and bowling. Wicket keeping, and to a lesser extent fielding are comparatively less consequential (when compared to batting and bowling that is).
So, the proposition is, if one wants to describe cricket properly, one has to first provide a proper description of batting and bowling. This is hard to do. Its very tempting to invent new factors and assume that these are of outsized significance. We invent lots of such factors - captaincy, leadership, strategy, selection, individual tactical decisions, "psychology" - etc. Each of these belong in air-quotes because they're half-assed for the most part, and not independent. Its trivially easy to make non-falsifiable claims about this guff.
It is very hard to observe batting and even harder to observe bowling. The causes of cricket results accumulate overwhelmingly due to decisions and actions by the bowler, and then by the batter on ball after ball after ball. The greatest players make good decisions and execute actions well ball after ball after ball. That is what decides cricket matches. Not some armchair guff about one decision on one ball which we happen to notice. This excellence is exhausting to observe. And so we don't even try to observe it.
Hmm. I understand where you come from. A very rationalist way of thinking. Your theory focuses on things that you can claim with measured precision. I get that.
What it goes against is one's experiential learning of cricket having played it at certain level. But I think we can reach a stage where the mental aspect can be measured as well. For instance, imagine a smart watch measuring your heart rate, capturing your biological data after something was said to a batsmen and the subsequent shot he played. It can help us measure the mental aspect of the game as well.
The dichotomy between experiential vis-a-vis data based claims shall always till we can measure all the variables that affect performance including the mental aspect.
This has been a fruitful discussion. Apologies for my insolence.
On a side note, does it bother you that the cricketers we are theorising upon actually don't care about all this? The existential angst of it all.
Re. sledging:
There's no reason to think that sledging affects performances. Cricket matches are decided by the quality of batting or bowling. Players whose batting or bowling is affected more by things like sledging are not as good at batting or bowling as players whose batting or bowling is affected less by things like sledging. That is to say, the better players are better players because they are better practiced, and their expertise and muscle memory is better trained, and more resistant to a larger variety of circumstances than lesser players.
The point of considering results is that because cricket is a game, the totality of relevant consequences is contained in the competitive record. There is nothing outside it.
So, as far as sledging, or any other legal thing is concerned, it has not effect outside of what is evident in the record which is made up of runs, balls and dismissals.
Ganguly averaged 23 as batsman at home against non minnows. I don't know how people accept those returns from Ganguly as acceptable returns. Rest of his career, he averaged 51 at home. 2000-05 was a really batting friendly time as well. His overseas numbers were fine as captain but maybe, just maybe, if he concentrated on his batting more, he would have ended with even better numbers overall.
Looking at Gangully's batting stats on Cricinfo
Batsman with average of 41, strike-rate of 72 in ODIs (311) and 42 in Tests (113) should be enough to give him place in Indian team as better than good batsman (if not great).
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ODIs
1992 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2007
3 33.62 41.81 41.5 46.5 56.39 36.95 38.41 42 32.65 17.41 44.28
He had peaked from 1997 to 2000 (average 56 in 2000) to high 30s from 2001 to 2004 in ODIs
His record against Minows is extra ordinary.. but his average against main teams is also not bad, except for Aus and may be Pak.
v Australia v Bangladesh v England v Kenya v New Zealand v Pakistan v South Africa v Sri Lanka v U.A.E. v West Indies v Zimbabwe
23.45 57.37 39 73.5 35.96 35.14 50.5 40.36 56 47.58 42.71
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Tests
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008
50.4 56.53 33.37 50.81 31 22.2 41.08 65.5 45.33 24.9 34.6 61.44 35.59
Also he has good record vs Eng, NZ, Pak, SL. Only vs Aus,SA,WI he has below 35 average
v Australia v Bangladesh v England v New Zealand v Pakistan v South Africa v Sri Lanka v West Indies v Zimbabwe
35.07 61.83 57.82 46.91 47.47 33.82 46.26 32.07 44.16
In tests, he always averaged above 50 in many calendar years, with only notable dips in 2000, 2001 and 2005.
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*** May be Year wise stats vs each country will provide better look on Gangully
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There was big loss of his form in year 2004 and 2005 warranting Greg Chappel (new coach) to question his attitude, fittness and methods as a batsman.
Only thing that went against Saurav Gangully, i feel is, Not accepting this loss of form or working on improving it in these 2 years... 2004/2005, eventually got him dropped.
And he came back with bang in 2007-2008 (235 vs Pak in Bangalore) and retired after constant scrutiny again.
But this analysis that due to his captaincy he was retained in the side seems to be true for only 2 years 2004 and 2005