Eleven Ways To Redemption

The 25,000-seater Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad, is the largest and most picturesque ground in the West Indies. It is also friendly to visiting Indian sides—all three of our overseas victories against the Windies have now come at this venue. So there was a faint sense of deja vu last week when Saurav Ganguly kissed the ground in delight and a handful of flag-waving supporters rushed in after India's 37-run first Test win on Caribbean soil in 26 years. But the victory was also a redeeming moment for the skipper—under fire of late for "indifferent" captaincy and "flawed" team selection despite a welcome return to form.

In many ways, the Port-of-Spain victory is a vindication of Ganguly's captaincy skills. Forget Sachin Tendulkar's joining Sir Don Bradman with his 29th century, or the silky V.V.S. Laxman's sizzling form run, or inspired spells by Javagal Srinath and Ashish Nehra which helped India grab victory. The win has a bigger import for Ganguly: he is now India's second most successful Test captain with 10 wins after Mohammed Azharuddin (14 wins). "So far it's been my sweetest moment as skipper," said Ganguly.

A moment to cherish for more reasons than one. Ganguly also made his arch critics like Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and Bishen Bedi eat crow and flip flop (see box). Even as the Indians took the field, Ganguly found himself enmeshed in a new controversy: faced with a green top and the news that the Windies were going into the match with four fast bowlers, he had boldly gone ahead and replaced the veteran spin warrior Anil Kumble with speedster Nehra. There were inspired leaks and hushed whispers about Ganguly taking sweet revenge against Kumble for resting him from a Test in Georgetown in 1996-97 when the spinner was the vice-captain. One Indian newspaper ended up quoting, of all people, an unnamed bank manager in Georgetown, that the team looked like "11 different players going through the motions, for their own selves"!

But the team's performance put an end to all such sloppy gossip. In the end, the fast bowling troika of Srinath, Zaheer Khan and Nehra, taking 15 of the 20 West Indian wickets, won the match for India. The hugely aggressive (a lot of people found his body language over the top) Ganguly on field metamorphosed into a firm and mature diplomat after the win. "It was not easy to keep a great bowler like Kumble out," he said. "But we had to bring in a third seamer, keeping in mind the conditions. We had to do it." Geoff Boycott, one of Ganguly's most ardent fans, had the last word: "(Ganguly) deserves a pat on the back for having the courage to leave Kumble out....The point is Kumble's style of bowling wins few—if any—matches abroad. Sometimes captains have to make difficult and painful decisions. (Making) those decisions can be a test of his mind." Suddenly, Ganguly's much-maligned aggression was cool. "They (Indians) showed great aggression. I could see that in the eyes of Saurav Ganguly," said former Indian captain Ajit Wadekar. Ganguly also silenced critics. Former Test spinner E.A.S. Prasanna had castigated Ganguly for leading the side "unimaginatively" (though he did back Kumble's exclusion in favour of Nehra).

But what many forget is that this is hardly turning out to be an idyllic tour in the sun for the Indian skipper: Harbhajan Singh was unavailable in the first Test, Ganguly himself got out cheaply at the Bourda Oval, there was a controversy over his careless remark ("I get bored waiting") about coming at number three; and the difficult decision to drop Kumble and a first innings collapse (56 for four) at Port-of-Spain. But Ganguly still stood by the players he has always believed in and was anything but clueless. For someone who has always put a lot of faith in Laxman's redoubtable abilities, the Hyderabad-based batsman's return to form in the Windies vindicates his decision to persist with him.At Port-of-Spain, where the two were engaged in a 149-run second innings partnership, and Laxman authored his 13th half-century, Ganguly kept telling Laxman that "we should keep concentrating and continue to be guided by the situation". Ganguly was looking for a lead of anything between 325 and 350 for the Windies to chase, but even the thinner 313 target didn't rattle him. He again put his faith in Nehra and Khan, two young men he has always pushed for. Then there was another class act from Srinath. It all paid rich dividends.

Chastised by critics at home for his "unthinking" bowling and fielding changes, Ganguly ironically won the hearts of local writers for the way he managed the changes. "The final day," says Garth Wattley, a writer with the Trinidad Express, "had a handful of defining moments—the early dismissals of Lara and Hooper; Ganguly's bowling change that effected Chris Gayle's dismissal; and the three wickets that fell for a run." Adds Wattley: "The Indian team was more disciplined."

That couldn't have happened with a divided team. Ganguly's problems are far from over—India's tail-end fails to score (the last four batsmen scored 29 runs at Port-of-Spain) and the opener's dilemma is still to be solved (S.S. Das has opened 20 times with five different partners in the recent past). But when it's payback time, Ganguly manages to pull it off with elan despite the biggest odds—he, as Colin Croft quips, is under more pressure with "a billion people looking at him to produce". Carl Hooper only has about 11 million.