Sourav Ganguly was always known to back young players during his tenure of captaincy. The reason why team India became a consistent side during the leadership of Ganguly was his ability to inspire his teammates. Aakash Chopra recently recalled an incident when between Ganguly and Sehwag.
After his initial success, Sehwag was struggling for runs and his place in the side was in a spot of bother. Sourav Ganguly had gone to Sehwag and told him to get runs or else he would not be able to play him again. Sehwag after that incident with his captain turned his fortunes around and scored a century.
Ganguly inspired Sehwag a lot – Aakash Chopra
“Viru, after scoring a lot of runs initially, had a big dry patch very early in his career. Sourav Ganguly had gone to Viru and told him to make runs that day else he would not be able to play him again. Fortunately, he scored a century in that game. So, Sourav Ganguly also backed a lot,” said Chopra during the latest edition of YouTube show Cric Cast.
Sehwag was one of the many young players that played under Ganguly and went on to become a great player. Similarly, Ganguly also backed Yuvraj Singh who had 18-20 ordinary innings during his early days.
“I remember that Yuvraj Singh had a stretch of 18-20 innings when he didn’t score a half-century,” said Chopra.
Aakash Chopra also talked about the reasons why his international career didn’t have success and he could only play 10 Tests in his career. The former opener admitted that he failed to convert his starts and tried to change his game which backfired.
“It was my mistake that when I was making ’40s-’50s, I should have been making hundreds, no one had held my bat. Although the team had given me a role to play in a particular manner, I took that role to heart. So I modified my game, that whatever task I have been given I need to perform that because that is what all players should do,” said Aakash Chopra.
